Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I'm no lawyer but I do think the word "steal" implies taking something from someone in such a way that he no longer has it. Book pirates aren't stealing a book. Neither the uploader nor the downloader is stealing if my definition is correct. It may be that they're depriving the publisher and author of the profit from a sale but that's not certain. To prove that it seems you'd have to prove that person would have purchased the book if they couldn't have downloaded it.
I'm not saying piracy isn't wrong. It is. But I don't think "stealing" is an apt description. I think it's used because of it's emotional impact and not because it's really descriptive.
Of course language changes with time and use and I suspect that the meaning of "stealing" might change to actually include piracy. in college I wrote a paper on why the word "fast" can mean either unable to move at all or moving rapidly. The word "silly" in earlier times meant "blessed". 
Barry |
Strangely, I had a long telephone discussion with a friend regarding this exact subject just last night. He held the same opinion as you, whereas my point of view was that to steal is a more broad concept. I gave the example of someone who has a paying library, the only one in a remote town where nobody owns books except the library owner. People borrow books from the library for a small amount of money.
Along comes Joe, who has state of the art technology. Joe borrows books, pays his pittance, then goes home and scans the books. Over time, he has scanned all the books in the library. The library owner still owns the books, so by your definition they haven't been 'stolen'.
But:
He now offers, for free, or a small signing up fee, or a far smaller price than the library owner charges, downloads of ebooks, all gleaned from the original library. The townspeople see this (er .. they have computers and ereaders) and immediately start downloading Joe's ebooks, which they can keep on their readers/computers for as long as they like.
Meanwhile, the library owner is slowly going out of business because fewer and fewer people borrow books from him. He occasionally has a few people who prefer physical books, but the income isn't enough to keep on the staff and pay the utility bills etc. So he has to close the library for good.
Under barryem and my friend's definition of 'theft' Joe didn't steal from the library owner. But I contend that in 'stealing' the content of the books he's deprived the library owner of his income, therefore has stolen money from him.
So despite the fact that none of the books from the library were permanently taken by Joe, the effect was the same.
barryem's and my friend's definition of stealing is too narrow, in my opinion.
This discussion went on for about two hours.
