Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyMartin
So if I download a movie illegally that is not theft as I have not deprived anyone of anything since the maker of the movie still has the movie. If I then make DVD copies of the movie and give them away that then cannot be theft either since the maker of the movie still has the movie. If I sell the movies at the traffic lights that is also then not theft. By this odd argument the person who made the movie still has it and the money I made from the movie they never had anyway so I did not take it from them. Personally I think this is an exceedingly weak and self serving argument.
I do not see that it is theft only when you deprive a person the use of something physical. If I take a photo it is my photo, that seems obvious. If you take it, even a copy of it, and use it without my permission then you have stolen my rights as the owner and creator of the photo to control it use. Theft for me is taking that which is not offered.
I think all these attempts to prove that copyright violation is not theft and we all have a right to this stuff is just a mad misunderstanding of human rights. We all think we have the right to what ever we desire no matter the consequences to others or the environment. So I want a book that is not legally available? Well then I will have to get it by other means, it is my right. Rubbish. You cant always get what you want, get over it. We do not have a right to get everything we want. Good grief
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Copyright infringement is not the same thing as theft. This does not make copyright infringement good, it simply makes it a different infraction. Assault is not theft; that doesn't make it either acceptable or legal.
As to your DVD counter-example: making an infringing copy of your movie and then converting it to a DVD which is then sold is not the same as theft. It's criminal copyright infringement. You have lost your exclusivity, but you can still make your own DVDs and sell them. You may not be able to beat the pirate's prices but you have not lost the ability to do anything with your movie that you had before.
However there is something that theft and copyright infringement do have in common, and that is that there are different degrees. Downloading a copy of a book, movie or song for personal use is the equivalent of petty theft, where wholesale production and distribution of DVDs or CDs is more like grand larceny. When it comes to theft, those extremes are treated differently; with copyright infringement we see industry groups trying to equate the equivalent of petty theft with grand larceny.
I don't live in a black and white world-- different things can be wrong or immoral in different ways. We make distinctions in the morality and severity of crimes based on both intention and loss.
Just because copyright infringement is both wrong and illegal does not make it the same as theft, and I believe that trying to apply the laws that deal with theft to copyright infringement across the board is not going to work. We need to have laws and policies that treat copyright infringement as copyright infringement and deal with it based on what it is before we can really make headway on the problem.
Not everyone who says copyright infringement is not theft is trying to use that statement as a justification for copyright infringement. Some are defining terms.
It's no different than the oft-repeated statement that you cannot backlight Eink. Just because you cannot backlight it does not mean you cannot light it, but if you do try backlighting it won't work.