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Comment by michael_dorfman | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, but no.

If you jump the fence at a concert, or sneak into a movie theater, you are guilty of "Theft of Services". Note that this type of theft does not deprive the original owner that resource.

If you want to pretend you are not stealing something when you infringe on copyright, that's up to you; I'd suggest that this is an oversimplification of the issue designed to induce unwarranted feelings of innocence

One last thing: since when is "Stealing is Wrong" a "western" notion? The Buddhist prohibition on stealing is even more extreme in its condemnation of the type of behavior you are defending.

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First of all, there is no such thing as a Buddhist 'prohibition' of anything. The precepts are trainings that describe skillful ways to live, and are much more like guidelines which can vary wildly from person to person and must be worked out individually

Secondly, while I can't know for sure, I think the 'Stealing is Wrong' mentality is not a statement about whether stealing is good or bad, but how strongly it is stigmatized in the west. So, likening some other unrelated activity (such as copyright infringement) to theft has a powerful mental effect.

Finally, if you sneak into a movie theater or jump the fence at a concert, you are actually taking up a seat or space that could have been used by a paying customer. This isn't the same thing as downloading digital goods, in which your use of these goods has no impact on the producer unless it prevented you from purchasing something you otherwise might have.

Copyright infringement is not an innocent act, but all acts of infringement are not considered equal. Honestly, I feel like you're the one oversimplifying things.

Umm, no. Some modern Buddhist traditions may treat the precepts as "guidelines which can vary wildly from person to person", but that's a fairly recent innovation. The precepts (including the lay precepts) are described in painful detail in the Pali canon, the Agamas, and some Mahayana Sutras, and although the details of the prohibitions differ somewhat between various traditions, all of them go far beyond "guidelines". Trust me on this one.

Second: I ask again-- do you know a non-Western culture where theft is not stigmatized?

Finally: taking up space or a seat is not a factor in the legal definition of "theft of services"-- theft of Cable TV holds as well. The salient characteristc (which coincidentally agrees with the Buddhist precept) is "taking that which is not given."

I understand that you'd like to divorce copyright infringement from the notion of theft, based on the physical deprivation of goods, but the legal notion of theft is (and as far as I know, has always been) a great deal broader than that, however inconvenient this happens to be to your conscience.

Sorry, but that is a big strawman. He never said "taking a seat is the definition of theft of services", he was replying to what made both of your examples theft of services. The difference is obvious and you know it.

Cable theft should probably not be called theft, because it is a combination of trespassing (to get the cable hooked up) and copyright infringement. Possibly, but I don't know the tech that well, it costs more to push the signal to more endpoints, which actually does work into theft of service then...

Trust me on this one.

Okay, I trust you now. Congratulations, you've won an argument on the internet, and you didn't even need a citation.

My point was, I'd rather not provide the citations, but I could. I'm just finishing up an M.A. in Buddhist Studies, and as part of a Buddhist Ethics course I recently did some work on the scriptural bases of the precepts in five different canons, but I really didn't think anyone here would be interested in the details. I was hoping that you'd be willing to just take my word on the issue.

This is quite interesting and I think that rather than saying 'trust me', by providing a bit of background it makes it much more likely for us to have a productive conversation. But for what it's worth, while I don't have an academic background in it, I'm a Buddhist practitioner.

Every retreat I've been on, and every book I've read has presented the precepts as a set of mindfulness trainings, and specifically distinguishes the concept of precept from the concept of 'commandment' or law.

We talked past each other, but to say that Buddhist ethics are stronger about things like 'not taking anything which is not freely given' is indeed correct. But equating that with theft is still not meant to be taken literally.

If we were to go down that road, much of what I've read about the precept not to commit murder also applies to speaking harshly to someone. I've always understood this as figurative, and valuable. But I am not going to call someone who harms someone through their words a murderer.

I feel like you are emphasizing too much on the words you are reading and not the intent or meaning behind them. That was the point I wanted to make, and hopefully I've done that now.

Let me guess: Thich Nhat Hanh?

Personally, I find the notion of "precepts as guidelines and not laws" to be attractive; I suppose a lot of Westerners do, too. Unfortunately, this is a very modern notion-- if you look at the (pre-20th-Century) literature, you'll find that the precepts are treated as laws, and that they go into explicit detail, and leave very little to personal judgment.

I disagree (as you might guess.) I'd argue that "taking that which is not given" is, literally, theft, and vice versa.

I've never come across that reading of the precepts; usually, the prohibition on lying is taken to include non-skillful speech. That is quite a figurative reading, indeed.

I feel like you are emphasizing too much on the words you are reading and not the intent or meaning behind them. That was the point I wanted to make, and hopefully I've done that now.

I'd suggest that in your attempt to separate the words and the intent, you run the risk of redefining words to mean what you wish them to mean.

You'd like to make a distinction between copyright infringement and theft, based on a physical analogy; but, as I've pointed out, the notion of theft has always been broader than that. The intent is clear: you're not permitted to take that which is not given-- whether it is a physical object, or a service, or a copyrighted work.

Please show some examples of pre-20th-century Buddhist literature that goes into very explicit detail about the precepts leaving little to personal judgment.

I've been reading from modern teachers, because Buddhism is a living religion, not something that was laid down in absolute terms centuries ago. But I have read a bit of the older texts through English translation and just have not seen the sort of strictness that you are implying.

Providing some specific excerpts would really help move this discussion forward.

I'll be happy to. I'm at home now, and my texts are at my office, but I can email some references to you tomorrow, if your contact details are on your HN profile.

In the mean-time, the Wikipedia page on the Patimokkha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patimokkha) lists the monastic precepts for the Theravada tradition; even in schematic form, you can see that they are quite detailed. When you add on Buddhaghosa's commentary in the Kankhavitarani, things get quite detailed indeed.

From everything I've read and heard from teachers, the practices for monastics are extremely finely detailed specifically because it forces those who go that route to be mindful of what they are doing each and every moment.

But this is a voluntary practice and has to do with amplifying some basic foundational ideas of non-harming and mindfulness so that you can see them in minute details. Nowhere have I ever seen Buddhist teachings that imply that it should be the goal of the laypeople to take on the monastic precepts. Even throughout history the vast majority of Buddhist practitioners were bound only by the 5 lay precepts.

Again, I think that if you're a non-practitioner, from the outside it might seem strange that such things are meant as 'trainings' and not 'rules'. That having been said, there are certainly cases where these rules are taken very seriously. You can read the book 'Turtle Feet' for a contemporary look into how political and bureaucratic the Tibetan monastics can be.

What I've been told is that the Buddha taught in many, many different ways depending on his intended audience. So when he was speaking to plain, common folks, he gave them simple instructions to follow. For some devotional types, he constructed elaborate and complex rituals to help with practice. I think that you may be studying the more complex end of things and missing some of the less academic teachings.

I think that there are two phenomena here that we should distinguish with modern Buddhism. One is the sort of new-age culture that has taken the words of Thich Nhat Hahn and the Dalai Lama and turned Buddhism into a sort of 'feel good' spirituality that isn't very deep. This isn't the fault of the teacher, but of a mass audience hungry for some good feelings.

But then there are also people like Jack Kornfield, Steve Armstrong, Larry Rosenberg, Henepola Gunaratana, Pema Chodron, and many others who have taken a more westernized, but still faithful way of representing Buddhism in the West. This is again speaking from the viewpoint of a non-academic, but I'm also not just a 'true believer', so I've done enough of my homework to feel like you're making too strong of a statement about what precepts are meant to express.

"you are guilty of 'Theft of Services'"

The legal definition is not the same as the literal or figurative meaning of a word, which also may differs from its connotation.

Edit: Also while it might be called "theft of service" and considered larceny in US, in Sweden the same act is called "fraudulent behavior" and is a lesser form of fraud.

Well it's a two-way street. We could then argue that figurative meaning of "copyright infridgement is stealing" is not the same as it's legal definition, too.

We could, but then we'd be trying to pin down a precise definition for a concept that is subjective and culturally dependent. Pointless to even try.

>If you jump the fence at a concert, or sneak into a movie theater, you are guilty of "Theft of Services".

Perhaps, but it unnecessarily introduces a host of vague, subjective issues (to the benefit of the lawyers involved). The actual crime was being on someone else's real property without their consent, as such the correct charge should be "trespassing."

"Theft of services" requires obtaining a service without payment. Obtaining digital goods would therefore not qualify.

Copyright and copyright infringement are defined in specific sections of law. Any comparison to another area of law (theft, theft of services, piracy, patent or trademark infringement, or homicide) will of necessity be inaccurate.

If I jump the fence or sneak into a theater, I take the place of a paying customer. I am stealing the ability to sell the seat, so they are in fact denied the resource. If I copy a song, the original owner still has everything he started with (time, stuff, etc).

Also: I never said it was a strictly western notion. I don't know enough about other cultures to make claims. So I qualified my statement to those places where I know it is correct. I appologize for offending you by not making overly broad statements.

Methinks it would be "Trespassing", a subcategory of "Violation of Property Rights", not "Theft of Services".

"theft" of services does not exist in swedish law though.

Last time I check physical space was a limited resource.

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