Pluralistic: “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing” (08 Dec 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net

The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

        • gapbetweenus@feddit.deEnglish
          103·
          2 years ago

          You seem to not understand what the word own means and the difference between material and not material goods.

            • gapbetweenus@feddit.deEnglish
              93·
              2 years ago

              I have a thing and than someone takes it away, so I can’t use it anymore. If somebody copies that thing - it’s not really theft.

              My point is more - concepts from physical world don’t nessessary apply to digital world.

              • ParsnipWitch@feddit.deEnglish
                41·
                2 years ago

                It just seems that what you are saying is that people shouldn’t be paid if their work doesn’t create something physical.

                • gapbetweenus@feddit.deEnglish
                  11·
                  2 years ago

                  Nope, that’s not what I’m saying. I just make a difference between copying, stealing, physical goods, digital goods and immaterial things. They are not the same.

                  Easy examples: original and copy does not really apply to digital works or two people on opposite sides of world can have the same thought but not have the same physical object at the same time, etc.

                • TootGuitar@reddthat.comEnglish
                  42·
                  2 years ago

                  You say “ask the dictionary” — multiple dictionary definitions as well as Wikipedia say that theft requires the intent to deprive the original owner of the property in question, which obviously doesn’t apply to copyright infringement of digital works.

                  You say “ask the law” — copyright infringement is not stealing, they are literally two completely different statutes, at least in the US.

                  So, what the hell are you talking about? Copyright infringement is not theft.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
          42·
          2 years ago

          I love how you guys play these mental gymnastics to justify this shit to yourselves.

          I love how you bootlickers always deny that anyone could possibly have a principled objection to modern intellectual property laws. I don’t need to “justify” at all. I rarely even pirate anything, but I don’t believe I’m doing anything wrong when I do.

        • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          22·
          2 years ago

          Intellectual property is not a thought that you own. It’s an idea

          Ah, it’s an idea, not a thought. Gotcha. Glad you cleared that up.

          Something that actually takes time to make, often a whole lot of time.

          Who the fuck cares? Dinner also takes a great deal of time to make.

          Something you never would have dedicated as much time to if you couldn’t be compensated for it.

          That’s not true. People have been telling stories and creating art since humanity climbed down from the trees. Compensation might encourage more people to do it, but there was never a time that people weren’t creating, regardless of compensation. In addition, copyright, patents and trademarks are only one way of trying to get compensation. The Sistine chapel ceiling was painted not by an artist who was protected by copyright, but by an artist who had rich patrons who paid him to work.

          Maybe “Meg 2: The Trench” wouldn’t have been made unless Warner Brothers knew it would be protected by copyright until 2143. But… maybe it’s not actually necessary to give that level of protection to the expression of ideas for people to be motivated to make them. In addition, maybe the harms of copyright aren’t balanced by the fact that people in 2143 will finally be able to have “Meg 2: The Trench” in the public domain.

          • ParsnipWitch@feddit.deEnglish
            31·
            2 years ago

            Why should an artist not be paid but a gardener or someone who build your house is supposed to be paid?

            After all, humans build stuff and make stuff with plants without compensation all the time.

            You just sound like a Boomer who thinks work is only work when the product isn’t entertaining or art.

        • aylex@lemm.eeEnglish
          11·
          2 years ago

          “Something you never would have dedicated as much time to if you couldn’t be compensated for it.”

          Just telling on yourself 😂

    • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      Intellectual property is a scam, the term was invented to convince dumb people that a government-granted monopoly on the expression of an idea is the same thing as “property”.

      You can’t “steal” intellectual property, you can only infringe on someone’s monopoly rights.

        • TootGuitar@reddthat.comEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          For someone who bitches all over this thread about people strawmanning their position, this is a pretty fucking great reply.

          Hint: one can be pissed about people throwing around the not-based-in-legal-reality term “intellectual property.” One can be pissed about people using it as part of a strategy to purposely confuse the public into thinking that copyright infringement is the same as theft, a strategy which has apparently worked mightily well on you. One can be all of those things, and yet still feel that copyright infringement is wrong and no one should be entitled to “literally everything someone else creates.”

          What you posted was a textbook definition of a straw man.

            • TootGuitar@reddthat.comEnglish
              0·
              2 years ago

              I don’t know how the original poster meant it, but one possible way to interpret it (which is coincidentally my opinion) is that the concept of intellectual property is a scam, but the underlying actual legal concepts are not. Meaning, the law defines protections for copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets, and each of those has their uses and are generally not “scams,” but mixing them all together and packaging them up into this thing called intellectual property (which has no actual legal basis for its existence) is the scam. Does that make sense?

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
      41·
      2 years ago

      If no one thinks that, why are you saying it right now?

      Actual theft of intellectual property would involve somehow tricking the world into thinking you hold the copyright to something that someone else owns.