Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion
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.
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Sigh... Here is the problem, one half of this argument keeps insisting on using the legal definitions of terms (which by the way can vary from country to country), the other half is arguing it in terms of ethical distinctions.
Laws ideally intersect with ethics, but unfortunately, they often do not. Even when they do intersect, laws often make distinctions that ethically do not exist (for example, assuming no physical harm is done, there is no ethical distinction between armed robbery and simple robbery, but legally there is; likewise, there are also lots of different legal distinctions regarding murder, even though ethically the act killing a person is pretty clear cut).
Ultimately the ethical (not the legal) question behind whether copyright infringement is theft depends not just on whether copyrighted material is deemed property under the law, but also upon the question of the effects that such infringement has upon the holder of said copyright.
I think a safe definition of the ethical concept of theft is
the taking of something of value by one person from a second person who legitimately owns that thing of value without the second person's consent.
Now how does that apply to copyright?
1. The copyrighted text is clearly owned by the creator of the text for a set term that is defined by the laws of a given country.
2. Said text clearly has some perceived financial and or personal value for the person who created the text.
3. The unauthorized copying of said text removes some potential value, either personal, financial or both, from the text. The value lost might be tiny, but it doesn't mean that in some sense value has not been lost. It also does not matter that the current copying might ultimately result in an increase in sales for said text (that would be like arguing that even though you stole money from your Mom to bet on a horse, and then you replaced the money with interest after the horse won that you were not guilty of stealing), for the moment value has been lost.
Now, some are going to argue that you would never have bought the text in the first place, and that therefore no financial loss has occurred. That may be true (but on the macro scale it is almost certainly not.. at least some of the downloaders would have ultimately bought the work if they had not downloaded it). However, it does deprive at least some personal value from the person who created the text. As a legal copyright holder, I have the right (without infringing on fair use) of specifying how my work is to be used. By copying the text, you have ultimately reduced the value of that right to me.
So legally it might not be stealing, but ethically if you copy my work without my permission, you have stolen from me because you have reduced the personal value of the text I have created.
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Bill