Good. The internet is meant to uplift human society, not enable petty theft. If only they could have gone after each thief to take back the money they stole.

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RiverCrochet 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Non-sequitur. The Internet only enables the copying of bits and not their theft, as the original bits aren't removed from their source. A remote-copy-and-delete might be considered a theft, but Bittorrent has no delete provisions and that's not really inherent to the infrastructure of the Internet per se (e.g. your network card can't physically make bits on the other side in storage disappear).

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orbisvicis 3 hours ago | parent [-]

For example:

Good. The internet is meant to uplift human society, not enable petty theft. If only they could have gone after each thief to take back the money they stole.

- signed, not-Asooka

	▲	JadeNB 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There's a difference between "I am the creator of this content [that I actually didn't create]" and "I am enjoying this content that I did not create." One could argue that it matters, in the latter case, whether you are enjoying the content in a manner with the creator's intention of how you enjoyed it, but, to state one among many possible responses, it is far from clear when I consume media through approved channels that that accurately represents how the creator would prefer I enjoy it.

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orbisvicis 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's why I don't feel bad pirating textbooks.

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lo_zamoyski an hour ago | parent [-]

Screw the author's labor, eh?

	▲	horsawlarway 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Well, this is part of the problem. Sometimes "the author's labor" amounts to reordering questions at the back to mark it as new revision and charge 150+ usd for a book that should have been $20 brand new, and is only purchased because it's a required title in a required class to get a piece of paper required for employment. In that case... Fuck yes. Screw the author's "labor". Arguably, screw the whole damn system. --- Copyright rarely helps small authors who actually need it. It usually gets employed by conglomerates that own distribution and are already screwing authors as hard as they think they can get away with. It's genuinely a pretty terrible system in its current form. We can do better.

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KumaBear 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Buddy we’d still be listening to cds if pirating didn’t exist.

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actionfromafar an hour ago | parent [-]

Spotify started out pirating.

	▲	Cyph0n 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		As did Crunchyroll.

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Telaneo an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

/s?

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tene80i 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You’ll find that a pretty unpopular attitude around here (hence the downvoting on your comment, and I assume mine shortly), but you are right.

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echoangle 2 hours ago | parent [-]

It’s unpopular because it’s a bad argument. It’s not theft because you don’t take anything away. You just create a copy and don’t pay for it, but that’s not theft.

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DrJokepu 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

A spy steals secrets. Credit can be stolen from you by your boss. Your competitor steals your ideas. In colloquial usage, theft is the act of stealing. The legal term is copyright infringement.

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hrimfaxi 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It might not be theft but it's not nothing either. Manslaughter isn't murder but someone still died. Copying might not be theft but you're still taking something you didn't pay for.

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amiga386 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Then use an accurate legal term for it, "copyright infringement", or a pejorative that both supporters and detractors agree on, e.g. "piracy"

	▲	somat 44 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		But it's not piracy either. People just want to make the crime sound worse then "infringement" Might as well call it "software rape" as that crime is closer to what is being done than than theft or piracy.

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zenoprax 42 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

It is an infringement on one's right to control the reproduction and distribution of their intellectual property.

This right is enforced by the authority that grants it. Viewing, listening, or otherwise 'consuming' this IP is not and cannot be an infringement on these rights. Those who provide are responsible.

If a country does not grant or enforce this right (or on behalf of others) then there is no infringment possible in that jurisdiction. cf. China or Russia.

Moral arguments beyond that are your own and should be clearly segregated from the law. Murder is, almost universally, both criminal and wrong. "Piracy" requires more attention to detail in order to have productive conversations.