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Comment by MichaelGG | Hacker News Reader

While I feel you might be mocking the folks that use this when calling pirating a movie "stealing", your point is still valid. Saying "stolen" serves only to sensationalize what happened. Saying "rips off" or "copies" would be more accurate.

As to why some people apparently feel more comfortable saying "stolen" in this case versus people sharing MP3s: There's an obvious qualitative difference between people sharing files, and someone passing work off as their own, especially when profiting from it. From what I can tell, it's the whole plagiarism part that really pisses people off.

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I think it's twofold. You've got it right that the plagiarism is probably the biggest reason, but the other reason is that they're using this "stolen" material for their own personal gain. If I download some MP3s and listen to them myself, there's no personal gain (besides the literal gain of having the MP3, of course). If I download some MP3s and put them in my product, now I'm illegally benefitting from someone else's work. I would be willing to call that stealing the MP3s even if I'm not trying to pass the MP3s off as my own creation.

I'm genuinely mystified by this mindset. If I copied an mp3 that you originally authored, you apparently wouldn't care.

But the minute I make money, it somehow bothers you. Why?

The rabbit hole goes even deeper. I would be even more upset if I had released said mp3 for free and you tried to make money from it. Figure that.

Sharing culture is much more complicated than just monetary values.

Because then I feel like I should be making that money. Also, there's the possibility (probability?) that in order to make money off of it, you're making it look like you made it, which my ego does not appreciate.

Because the pirate that's selling the MP3 didn't go through any of the effort to make it. They are benefiting from the work of others, without giving them any credit.

When the copy is free, there's a non-zero cost associated with making that copy. 20 years ago, it was the cost of a cassette tape. Even now, there is a bandwidth cost associated with giving away a copy.

Because if you copy my MP3 for yourself then you are a single person who is not going to pay me (ie one potential lost sale). Not a huge deal. You probably wouldn't have paid for it if you couldn't pirate it anyway.

If you then go out and sell that same MP3 then every sale you make is a sale that _I_ should have been paid for. The people you are selling to are willing to part with money and instead of it coming to me, the original author, it is going to a 3rd party.

And if I offer it for free on my website but put ads on the page?

I'm not saying I wouldn't care. I would be a bit disappointed that you chose to pirate instead of purchasing. But I wouldn't be mad about it. Once you start trying to pass it off as your own, or trying to benefit from it, that's when it becomes something worth being mad about.

Are you honestly comparing sharing for personal use, and ripping stuff off for personal gain?

Yep. I'm upset with this but I hadn't even considered the reproduction aspect. It's the fact that they're using the models in their own thing.

If they were just sending out verbatim copies of torchlight without profit then it would be a different issue.

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