7
bahua
7y

I think it's a scam that the multinational corporations have pulled off that they've managed to get everyone to call and equate something technical and legally specific, "piracy."

Piracy is the theft and resale of physical goods. Copyright infringement is not piracy. It's a crime(in most countries), for sure, but it isn't piracy. The word "piracy" is emotionally charged, and its use serves the interests of corporate profit, not the interest of the origination of creative works, and certainly not your best interest. It's a deceptive practice. It's a lie.

But "copyright infringement," and "intellectual property," don't grab readers' attention like, "piracy." So, like how DeBeers has indoctrinated the world into thinking that diamonds are valuable, the RIAA, MPAA, and the BSA have indoctrinated the world into buying into the lie that copyright infringement and piracy are the same thing.

Comments
  • 0
    That's interesting. Because I had a similar thought, you can't just say pirating = theft. Think about it this way: In German law you are allowed to make few backup copies and give them to close family or friends. Is it theft if you backup your original DVD? It's not. Piracy is bad, but there was even a study from the EU that stated that pirating even boosted sales in some way. It's a sensitive area where you can't just see black and white, but it's also hard to not see black and white.
  • 1
    Anecdotal evidence:
    distribution problems => piracy

    I find it crazy that getting caught grants you 5 years behind bars here in Germany.
    Un fucken reasonable!
  • 0
    @Jop- Actually, it was a study that was surpressed for years. Seems like someone ain't happy with the EU :P
  • 0
    @RageBone Yup. Way to hard. Just make one pay a manageable amount of money.
  • 0
    @Jop- Where did I say that?
  • 0
    The act is copyright infringement. It is an unlawful misuse of copyrighted material. It's far more complicated than theft, but it serves the agenda of the copyright holder to call it theft or piracy. Theft requires the owner of a physical good to be deprived of that physical good. When someone unlawfully misuses a copyright, its owner still has lost nothing. The copyright owner hasn't been deprived of it.

    Piracy goes even further. For something to be pirated, it has to be first stolen in such a manner that deprives the owner of its possession, and then it has to be unlawfully resold by the thief. Making a copy of a file over the internet satisfies none of those requirements.

    It's against the law in most countries, and I'm making no claim whatsoever that it isn't. It is a crime. But it is a lie to call it theft or piracy.
  • 0
    @Jop-

    The loss of profit potential is arguable and speculative. I'm not referring to emotion, speculation, and assumption. I'm referring to the law, and calling things what they are. Theft requires the unlawful deprivation of physical goods, not the copying of ones and zeroes.

    It's not theft. It's not piracy. It's copyright infringement.
  • 0
    @Jop-

    No, that's your subjective interpretation of a clear law that defines that behavior as copyright infringement. A crime, yes. But not theft. Stealing money is theft. Wire fraud is a form of theft. But using copyrighted data in an unlawful fashion is explicitly defined as copyright infringement. For you to call it theft is emotional projection, like saying, "this sucks." Theft is well-defined, and so is piracy. And so is what this is: copyright infringement.
  • 0
    @Jop-

    No, it's overly simplistic to behave as if data that's arranged a certain way is the same as physical matter.
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