Quote:
Originally Posted by dmikov
It rifles me when copying of the book is called theft. It is illegal, but it is not a THEFT. Loosing potential sale is NOT a theft. If I read the book in B&N drinking coffee, if I took it from my friend or library you will not call it a theft. If I legally bought it used, you are getting Nadda, but you will not dare to call it theft. But the result is the same lost sales.
Will you call me a thief if I verbatim narrate the story from the book to my children? The book I read in the library?
What if I narrate the dialog from Seinfield? Somebody will say I violate copyright, but is it stealing?
I am just thinking of good Biblical times, when you had to take somebody statue and deprive them of it for it to be a sin and a crime. And if you made a copy of ancient Greek statue in your neighbors yard you were just a hack not a criminal. 
Money hungry lobbyists are a scary thing indeed. |
The difference for digital items is that the copy is 100% the same as the original. And you agreed not to copy it, except for personal use, when you bought it. That is why the definition of theft had to be adjusted. If you want analogies, how about borrowing somebody's car without permission and then returning it in good shape. Is that no crime? Even if you call such copying not a theft, you call it illegal, too. And thus it should be punished if the copies are distributed.
If we go by your thinking, any design has no value. Copying any physical product (garments, shoes, electronics, furniture, etc) would not be a crime since you are only taking away sales. So in the end, only the low cost manufacturers would survive and everybody would have to live off third world wages, since no extra value is created through creative thinking. Look past short term personal benefits ("wow, I don't have to pay") and for benefits to all of us.