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Comment by marbletiles | Hacker News Reader

The thing that is being stolen is the right of exploitation of your creative work (it's one of the UN Human Rights, that). When I make something, I have the right to control how it is exploited commercially -- even if I simply don't want it to be commercially exploited!

So when software I make is copied without my consent, I lose that right. If the infringement is large enough, I utterly lose it. (See also Trumpet Winsock).

Property doesn't need to be physical objects. You can steal an idea just as much as you can steal lunch money. And you can steal my rights.

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Ideas are not protected by copyrights. If you tell me about your idea, we both have it. Nothing was taken from you.

If I take your pen, you no longer have it; thats theft.

Sorry, haven't been clear. "Ideas" was supposed to be slightly tongue-in-cheek -- compare "you can steal hearts as well as pens".

The thing that is being stolen is the right of exploitation. That is what copyright protects.

The exclusive right to control the exploitation of your creations is something that can be stolen though, technically speaking. Because if someone else appropriates control over what can be done with your work, the exclusive control over it is taken away from you. By the definition earlier, that's theft.

If nobody has exclusiveness afterwards, then it was just destroyed, not stolen.

If I steal your car and then destroy it, it's not right to say it was "just destroyed". In both cases the original possessor is deprived of something.

Well, you temporarily had my car then. In the case of exclusivity, it's not temporarily with the unauthorized copier.

It is deprivation of exclusivity though, I agree.

The definition given earlier was: "A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it"

I am not sure we can treat an abstract notion like "exclusivity" as property.

If we do, what if someone has exclusive knowledge of some algorithm, and then someone else discovers it too? Is he a thief?

I can buy this if somehow someone illegally obtained your copyright.

Other than that, you don't lose your right to exploit your work. Someone else is exploiting your work in addition to you. They are infringing on your copyright, not stealing it.

Depends on the type and scale of infringement and gets slightly pedantic: if I can no longer workably exercise my right -- if the infringement is too widespread, say -- do I still have it?

Yes, you do. It's your choice what you do with it.

You could sue for everyone for copyright infringement. (This didn't work so well for the RIAA.)

Or you can figure out a way to capitalize off the reason why everyone likes your work.

In any instance you don't lose your copyright.

You're conflating the right of control of exploitation with copyright, which is a legal creation to protect that right.

The two are close, but not synonymous. Take photographs: the exclusive first-use of a photograph is a big thing. If you publish my picture without my permission, my right of control is gone.

I can use copyright laws and the courts to try and get economic redress for that, but nonetheless I no longer have the ability to decide where and when that picture is first published; the ability was stolen from me.

Yes, I assumed you were speaking of copyright. Copyright gives you a monopoly on your work. Is this what you mean by the "right of control of exploitation?" Is there another law that gives that right or are you speaking from a moral standpoint?

UN Declaration of Human Rights (ratification varies by country; your mileage may vary) enshrines a right to control of the exploitation of your works, yes.

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