• TWeaK@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Piracy explicitly is not stealing. Theft requires denying the owner of the ability to use the thing that is stolen. Copyright infringement does not meet this bar, and is not a crime in the vast majority of cases. Commercial copyright infringement is the only offense classed as a crime, which in a nutshell is piracy for profit ie selling pirated material.

    • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Piracy explicitly is not stealing.

      Piracy is attacking ships at sea and is usually done in order to rob them.

      • egonallanon@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        This is why you get a letter of marque to give you legitimacy. I’ve been letioning my government for one endlessly so I can attack Russian shipping in the balkans.

    • Narrrz@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      that’s an interesting definition, and one that appeals to me especially as a fan of “harmless” theft (taking something that the owner will never notice is gone, nor be inconvenienced by the lack of)

      • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It’s literally the legal definition. Copyright infringement has never been theft. Media companies have been trying to change the definition of theft, though.

        It used to never be a crime, only a civil offense. This means the rightsholder has to sue you, rather than the state prosecute you, but also that the burden of proof is “the balance of probabilities”, ie whichever side tips the scale past 50/50 with their argument, rather than “beyond reasonable doubt” which is more like >99%. However in the last decade many countries have introduced “commercial copyright infringement” as a criminal offense. Off the top of my head, in the US I think the threshold for that is like $1,000 or something.

        It’s not about it being “harmless” but the fact that you’re not taking something away from someone. If I steal your laptop and sell it, you no longer have a laptop. If I copy data, you still have your original copy.

        This is also why there’s a different crime for “joyriding” instead of just stealing a car. If you steal a car, you might argue that you were just taking it for a drive, and never intended to permanently deprive the owner. In that case it’s easier to convict you for joyriding instead of theft.

    • myslsl@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Regardless of the semantics of what we call theft, or whether theft requires denying somebody access to some good, there’s an ethical issue with copying other people’s stuff without permission. If a person breaks into another persons home and makes copies of all of the documents in their home private or otherwise, they’ve at least committed a crime in the form of breaking and entering. But if a person is invited into another persons home, and then without pemission copies all of the documents in the house, that still feels like a wrong act? Like, if you invite me into your house and I start copying down your personal journal, your family photos and other stuff you have lying around, to me that sounds like I’d be doing something wrong by you?

      Edit: I do want to point out here that I’m not saying piracy is inherently wrong/bad or never justified.

      • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Sure, but breaking and entering is a crime - just like theft. Copying someone’s documents is wrong, but it’s not a crime (not unless you commit a crime with those documents, eg fraudulently take out credit). In that case, it’s a civil offense against the victim - just like copyright infringement.

        Crimes are prosecuted by the government. To be convicted of a crime you have to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt - in other words, it’s more than 99% likely you did it.

        Civil offenses are prosecuted by the victim. The burden of proof is “the balance of probabilities”, ie it’s more than 50% likely you did it. The victim must also show actual damages.

        In the US, media companies have perverted the law around copyright infringement, and they manage to get awarded statutory damages well in excess of any actual damages they incur. This is why we had all those ridiculous Napster lawsuits where people were fined hundreds of thousands for downloading a handful of songs. In the rest of the world, they could only be awarded actual damages, and the lawsuits weren’t really worth anything.

        Media companies would really like copyright infringement to be theft, and they’ve lobbied hard for that. However they haven’t managed it, not yet anyway. They did manage to establish a crime of commercial copyright infringement, though, where if you pirate a significant amount of material or do it for profit you could be criminally charged.

            • myslsl@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Why would something be unethical if nobody is hurt?

              Why are you conflating damaging property with causing harm? It’s at least arguable that an invasion of privacy is harmful, regardless of whether or not property damage occurs.

                • myslsl@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  In my example privacy invasion definitely occurs. If you disagree with that, then you should review what I initially said.

                  If the notion that when people don’t want to share things with you, you have an unqualified right to take those things, and that doing that is just inherently not damaging, then I think your position is unrealistic and incredibly self serving.

                  Do you have some point to make here besides claiming you’re just never doing anything wrong when it serves your interests?

                • myslsl@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Here’s another example. Say a person makes pornographic photos and videos for their significant other, suppose that content gets leaked onto the internet and is uploaded to popular torrent sites without their permission. How is piracy of this sort of content not an invasion of privacy? How is piracy of this sort of content not unethical?

      • FoxBJK@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        It may sound the same but making a copy of something is absolutely not the same as taking something. It’s an important distinction.

        • pazukaza@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          You’re taking away the profit they deserve for the work and effort it took them to create the information.

  • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    I am proud of pirating and I don’t get why people who also pirate would have a problem with that. Like you think it’s wrong and do it anyway, but think people who don’t think it’s wrong are cringe somehow? What’s wrong with standing up for what you believe in?

    • Shere_Khan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 year ago

      That’s dumb. If you are supposed to pay for something and you just take it instead, you stole it. You can argue word meanings and technicallies all day, but it’s a lot easier to just be real about what we are doing here.

      • MxM111@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        It is copyright violation, not stealing. Yes, it is damaging to the content creator, under current economic and law structure, but it is not stealing. If you burn a house belonging to the content creator, you do not call it stealing, just because it is damaging to them. So, why do you insist on calling it stealing here?

        On a side note, one can incision a society where there is no copyright. In that society it would be completely lawful and “non-damaging” to copy things. Copyright is an artificial construct that we choose to have, but it does not mean that we can not rejected (we, as in the whole society, not individual)

      • Poggervania@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Theft is the taking of another person’s personal property with the intent of depriving that person of the use of their property.

        If you stole a car, you physically took something away from somebody. If you download a car, the original is still there - you’re just making an exact copy for yourself for free. Same if you swiped a candy bar at a gas station - you’re depriving that gas station the use of their property, which is to sell and make money. If you download a candy bar, nothing is taken and the gas station can still sell the original.

        So let’s be crystal clear here: what’s happening is not theft, because nothing was taken and the owner is not deprived of the use of their property. Can you argue that you’re getting something for free when you shouldn’t? Yes, and that’s more in line of denying profits rather than actual theft.

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      To add onto that, on the Jerboa app (not sure about other apps), if I try to click on an image in a comment, it just minimizes the comment. I’d love to be able to click on pictures in comments, as well, and have the thumbnail expand.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Connect does this too. It’s dumb. There’s not even a contextual long press option to open externally or anything. I’m sure it’ll come eventually, but it sucks as it is right now.

  • RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s a lot earlier when you realize that everyone else is going to treat this world like a smash and grab regardless of what you do. These companies included especially.

    • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Which is why I think it is probably more immoral to play by their rules. But in the end I pirate cause I’m poor.