Hmm...interesting. I see the difference you are trying to illustrate but to me, obtaining something illegally that was intended to be purchased is stealing. We're talking about the same thing though:)
When does the act of stealing occur? If I download a torrent and then delete it without watching/playing/listening, did I steal it? If so, then does that mean repeatedly copying the file to and from an external hard drive is repeated theft?
Does it become stealing only if I make use of the material? If I buy the movie and show it to ten house guests for free, are they thieves? They didn't pay to watch and the author would have preferred it if they did. If they aren't thieves, why would they become thieves if I uploaded ten copies to each friend instead of showing it to them in my living room? Of course, I would be infringing on the author's legal copyright, but I don't see where any stealing can be definitively identified.
Yes, welcome to adulthood.
Just because it's not stealing doesn't mean it's not illegal. You can't call anything that's illegal "stealing". It's piracy, which is illegal, but a different act than stealing.
People who started calling piracy stealing are the same people that cannot accurately understand what is actually happening, and people who benefit from calling it stealing instead of correctly portraiting it as it's own crime.
The desensitized image of piracy that people have is somewhat close to the way some people have a desensitized image of credit card fraud. The image that you're hurting a faceless corporation, and not an actual person. Introducing the moral part in an action that doesn't accurately portray a victim is the hard part. When stealing it's easy because you can relate and imagine the victim of an action.
Certainly the last time I downloaded a TV program I did using BitTorrent, rather than boarding the content producer's boat and taking it with force.
Pirate, verb, sense 3:
The unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work - to pirate software
Take (another person's property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: "thieves stole her bicycle".
Here's a link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piracy
How can you OWN a number ? It doesnt make any sense to me, and I'm a software developer that makes products.
Its like saying, "I own the file represented by 23445353568893534534565767525454546422223346445646" and you have to pay me use that number. Sounds pretty dumb when you really break down this entire intellectual property issue
In terms of quantifiable impact, I think there is a clear ethical distinction between flipping bits on a disk and taking possession of material property.
You're depriving another of something that is rightfully theirs, control over their creative content.
Yes, but "control over creative content" is a nebulous concept that bares only a thin resemblance to things that we can determine are absolutely present (or not present, as in the case of theft)
Let's not get pedantic here, lest we devolve into discussing what "to steal the spotlight" means.
This is exactly my point. I don't think the difference between "to steal the spotlight" and "to steal a spotlight" is a pedantic distinction.
Of course, the ethical difference is probably larger than simply double. To use an old saying, let us assume that:
potential sale = a bird in the bush
access to physical product = a bird in the hand
a bird in the hand = 2 * (a bird in the bush)
a bird in the bush = x * (a bird in the hand + a bird in the bush)
a bird in the bush = x * (2 * a bird in the bush + a bird in the bush)
a bird in the bush = x * (3 * a bird in the bush)
a bird in the bush / 3 = x * a bird in the bush
1/3 = x
With piracy, the RIAA has lost the potential sale to the individual pirate. However, they still can sell the same DRMed AAC file to someone else. With our theft example, not only has Toyota lost the ability to sell to the thief: they've also lost the ability to sell that car to anyone else in the world. Therefore, if
X = likelihood of sale to one individual
X * world population * price
X * 1 * price
First of all, relatively pricing should not matter. By your logic, if Toyota's price was suddenly 0.5 * price, then stealing just got two times better! What's wrong is wrong.
Second, your equation does not do justice to math. If your definition of X is the same as mine (i.e. average likelihood an individual will buy this item, independent of the world population) then you're saying Toyota's lost income can potentially be GREATER than the price of the car.
In clearer terms, if
dX / d(world population) = 0
lost income = X * world population * price
Where does the logic break down? Well it seems you've modeled the world's purchases of A SINGLE CAR as independent of each other. (In other words, you've modeled the lost income if Toyota had a car stolen by every human in the world.) What you really want, for n people, is
X*P + (1-X)*X*P + (1-X)^2*X*P + ... + (1-X)^(n-1)*X*P = P*[1-(1-X)^n]
So now the comparison is between (1 - (1-X)^N) and X. In the case of software like Windows 7 where relatively few people will go for a free alternative, X is pretty damn high. I won't argue that it's greater than (1 - (1-X)^N), but it's nowhere near your estimate of 7 billion.
In all seriousness, I definitely agree that the "relative virtue" of digital theft is better than other forms. But, as you acknowledge, there is indeed a loss of value.
The only reason for the tap on the shoulder is the effort by the industry groups to get people to conflate the two things. I hate seeing people be tricked, especially by such an odious organization :)
The general gist of the case is that a man made a business out of pressing and selling Elvis records without distribution rights. Because of this, he was indicted for (among other things) distribution of stolen property and conspiracy of the same.
The supreme court struck down all of the stealing charges, with an opinion that (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here): "Copyright implies a more complex set of property interests than simple theft".
The phonorecords in question were not "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" for purposes of [section] 2314. The section's language clearly contemplates a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained and those eventually transported, and hence some prior physical taking of the subject goods. Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.
I was questioning the validity of your (albeit informal) research, that people don't find deprivation to be a key aspects of the meaning of theft.
Yes, earnings. When you grow up you will need to work and earn money and pay bills and balance a checkbook and without "piracy" (meaning stealing) controls, your Internet usage will be even higher than mine as you grow older.
Allowing "theft" be defined as depriving someone of something turns pretty much every crime in existence into "theft". Maybe we should just have 1 commandment - thou shalt not steal?
The difference is that if I steal your car, you have to pay to replace it. If I duplicate your car unlawfully, you still have a car but now so do I.
I understand why taking a CD from a HMV is stealing, because it deprives the store owner and content owner from making profit from their expense.
I don't understand why people call it stealing when I don't deprive the content owner/publisher from making profit and causing them no expense.
Copyright infringement isn't stealing just like it also isn't rape or murder. That doesn't make it right, but it definitely make it different from theft.
I remember before it was called stealing, because we were doing it without mass attention on a young internet. I've learnt to gloss over stealing and theft when reading about piracy because I've always seen it as hyperbole because I knew the net before was labeled that. I put it in the same basket as hacker vs. cracker, as much as I wanted everyone to know the difference - they don't care and its a boring argument.
It seems (correct me if I'm wrong) that people have been exposed to copyright infringement == stealing from so much media for so long that it is accepted by default. It didn't used to be this way.