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Comment by tomp | Hacker News Reader

> morally wrong, if not outright encoded in law

I'd say exactly the oposite. It's illegal (= prohibited by law), but might not be morally wrong - I don't feel bad for downloading movies/music when any of the following are met:

(i) the content is not readily available (e.g. movies right after release, movies and music in non-G6 countries) (ii) the content is of shitty quality or atmosphere (e.g. low bitrate, CDs, cinemas) (iii) I would not pay for content (i.e. even if it were readily available in supreme quality, I would rather not have it than buy it) (e.g. albums that I'm not sure are good).

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This is where most people really start to bicker about this issue. There is the group that understands that it is morally wrong to steal, and then there is the group that does mental gymnastics to get out of "feeling bad" about it or to otherwise justify it somehow. You even end it with "I would not pay for content [...]." If that isn't outright just saying "yeah I steal and I don't care" then I don't know what is.

I guess the issue is elsewhere - there is a group of people that think that copying is the same as stealing, and there is the group that can see the difference.

I belong to the second group. Let me try to explain it to you... Would you rather that I stole your car, or just copy it?

That doesn't even make sense. Stealing is stealing regardless of whether it's something physical or something digital. Just because humans invented a new way for things to exist doesn't mean that products in that form aren't being stolen when you acquire them for free by downloading them off the The Pirate Bay.

Hm... Even assuming that I agreed with you assertion, you're making a lousy argument.

First, you're attacking me/my intellect. Then, you make an assertion without providing even the slightest proof/argument for it (I'm not a native English speaker, but I'd say that the dictionary definition of stealing disagrees with you), and you're ignoring my real argument completely (i.e. that copying is different from depriving someone of a physical item which I just called "stealing").

Lastly, humans didn't just invent a new way for things to exist, humans also invented concepts such as property and intellectual property. The last one is actually quite new! So, stealing is a concept that is completely defined by the society, and I think it's in our best interest to talk about it, discuss how we should define it in the future.

The comparison is flawed. The theft is not of the physical product, but of the proceeds or profits.

And if you download something that you: are incapable of attaining due to geographical or other limiting factors, will buy after reviewing, or have 0 chance of buying or viewing/listening otherwise...

where is the loss of profits?

> The theft is not of the physical product, but of the proceeds or profits.

Only assuming that I would otherwise (if I hadn't copied it) pay. Which is often a false premise. Especially for people like me, who simply cannot pay, even if we want to (I don't live in the US, so much of the online content isn't available to me).

I agree that not paying sometimes is stealing. E.g. when you don't pay a masseuse/prostituta after they have delivered their service. But, that is a completely different situation (you agreed to a exchange time<-->money, then you essentially broke the contract).

Car stealing/copying is the best comparison I could think of. Maybe a better one would be, stealing a car from the company that makes it, vs. building an exact copy at home. The second one might be objectionable (infringing of patents & copyright), but they are most certainly not the same.

I hope this clarifies my earlier argument a bit.

@Falling3 - If you mean to tell me that the majority of people who download copyrighted items, then go forward to buy the music, sure your argument is fair.

@Tomp - Well it's hard to compare digital products to physical products since you don't have to create the item more than once for a digital good. Just because you didn't plan to pay anyway, doesn't make it any less "stealing" You can't use the argument "I was never going to buy it anyway" as a valid reason for stealing something.

Most of the people I know that still regularly download music are huge audiophiles and buy a lot of physical music, attend concerts, and purchase other music merchandise.

And that still leaves two other arguments. Personally, I downloaded a lot of music and movies when I was a poor HS/college student and there was literally 0 chance of me purchasing them as an alternative. The lost profits argument just doesn't apply.

Yes it does...you deprived the artist of making money as opposed to depriving yourself of music and movies. How does that not apply? You took for free what others paid for.. Your income doesn't matter. Poor people aren't entitled to free goods because they were never going to drive business anyway.

You can't deprive someone of something that was never there. Consider the following sets of situations:

1: An album is available for $10. It is worth $5 to me. I don't buy it.

2: An album is available for $10. It's worth $5 to me. I pirate it and obtain it for $0.

The second set of circumstances is better for everyone: I have gained total welfare of $5 and no one has lost out. I don't see how this is worse than the first option, or morally wrong..

I'm sure the artist who just lost out on his 5 to 10 bucks would beg to disagree.

It isn't your right to choose the price you'd pay for something and then copy it if you feel so inclined. You either pay the asking price for a good / service, or you don't pay and don't enjoy the benefits of the service / good. This is why copyright infringement which subverts this system is illegal.

>>I'm sure the artist who just lost out on his 5 to 10 bucks would beg to disagree.

I'm sure that the artist getting a new fan, and becoming more popular for free is a very dangerous process indeed :-) ...

You aren't a 'fan' if you aren't paying for it, I'd call that a 'leech'.

To be a fan, the major criterion is that you have to like the artist. Paying comes at a later stage.

You liked it enough to download and listen to...but not to pay? That's not a fan. If you don't intend to pay then don't download against the artists wishes and listen to it via free means.

The artist hasn't 'lost out' on anything. With digital distribution there is no marginal cost for extra consumption --- it's all fixed cost. This is why a patronage model (such as Kickstarter) is probably more appropriate nowadays.

Even if you do think copyright is still appropriate, it needs to be carefully managed. In general, the purpose of copyright was never to ensure authors have some 'right' to control their work in perpetuity, as is commonly assumed today --- you can see that at work right there in the US Constitution 'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries'. There's some interesting discussion here http://rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/optimal_copyright_t...

A study by the Swiss government showed that people have a fixed budged reserved for entertainment - if they can download music for free, they will spend it going to the concerts instead.

What does that matter?

Artists are still getting the money.

Except of course the artists who didn't get the money they otherwise would have if a free mp3 rip of their music wasn't already posted online somewhere.

more likely, noone would know about them...

I think most people underestimate the effect that file-sharing has had on our society. Music is so popular, not because of MTV, but because of napster&ThePirateBay&YouTube. If it weren't for these services, most people would probably listen to at most 10% of the music they listen to now, more likely 1%.

If the argument is "piracy is bad because it results in a loss of profits", then the counterargument "that's ok I absolutely would not have bought it anyway" is completely valid.

Why should you be entitled to something free because you never planned to buy it? Please explain

No one is talking about entitlement. Read what I said. If the above argument is presented as reasoning against, then the counterargument is valid.

If someone is selling hot dogs at their stand for $2.00, and someone opens a stand next door selling hot dots for only $1.00, the first seller might complain that the second has "stolen" their customers and their profits, but that doesn't mean that it's theft in a moral or legal sense. Or in other words, theft of potential "proceeds or profits" is never theft per se.

When something is stolen, the owner no longer has it. This is not the case with copyright infringement.

This may or may not be morally right or wrong in certain situations. But it is definitely different than "stealing", and just applying our same moral and ethical precepts about theft to copyright infringement does not work. They are fundamentally different and must be considered separately.

The problem with this line of thinking is that you are, in a way, supporting the efforts of people that produce a inferior product. By downloading and using the inferior product, you aren't supporting products that do meet your needs, but might not be as popular.

So, stop supporting these products, and instead, support products that are meeting your needs.

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