Why do people not see copy-right infringement as stealing?

[Mise]

I suppose that you must see that, while not stealing in a theoretical sense, it is stealing in an actual sense; when the receiver of the copied ball gets the ball magically, he is getting for free what the original owner could have sold to make money. The main case against copyright infringement is greed (IP owners want more money); the main case for copyright infringement is greed ("lawbreakers" don't want to spend money).

Unfortunate, this world we live in.

The property owner could have made money. But imagine you're standing outside a shop. You might decide to go in, in which case you see something you like and you buy it. But then you remember that American Idol is on TV and if you go into the shop, you will miss it! So you decide not to go in, and therefore deprive the shop-owner of a sale. Does that mean that American Idol has stolen from the shop?

 

[NiRv4n4]

The property owner could have made money. But imagine you're standing outside a shop. You might decide to go in, in which case you see something you like and you buy it. But then you remember that American Idol is on TV and if you go into the shop, you will miss it! So you decide not to go in, and therefore deprive the shop-owner of a sale. Does that mean that American Idol has stolen from the shop?

No, but I think the better analogy is this:

You are outside a store, see something you want for $500. Decide that is too much, and walk down the street. In an alleyway, you find a black market dealer who sells the same product for $10 (may as well be $0, as this is the case in most torrenting sites). The goods are obviously stolen; are you complicit to the theft for buying this as opposed to the $500 product?

I suppose this does not apply to people who buy an album and share it P2P. But it does apply to a lot of P2P sharing, which is based off of an initial and undeniable theft of IP. You can never really know if what you are receiving is stolen or not.

 

[Defiant47]

There's nothing wrong with it logically, but it seems entirely inconsistent with the commonly accepted notion of stealing, which requires the property owner to be deprived of some property. The property wouldn't exist if the person hadn't stolen it; the act of stealing it necessarily requires some new property to be created that otherwise wouldn't have existed. If not for the theft, no new property would have been created. Before the theft, the property owner had X items of property; after the theft, the property owner still has X items of property, so the property owner has been deprived of nothing.

JR's construction of property rights is inconsistent with commonly understood notions of what theft entails.

How about this:

You are tasked with building rubber balls. Under your employment contract, every ball you create must go in a certain bin, and the plant owner will then sell them all. If you create 30 balls, then they all belong to the owner and he'll sell them. If you create 50 balls, then they all belong to the owner and he'll sell them.

Now consider the fact that you created 30 balls yesterday. Today, you create 30 balls, and then an extra ball that you will keep for yourself. Would it not be accurate to call taking the extra ball stealing?

Intellectual property is no different. Except instead of a specific employment contract, it's that all of society has a contract with intellectual property owners via the rule of law, that any created copies belong to the IP owner. I'm pretty sure that when a manufacturer creates 10,000 CDs, as well as copying the data onto the CDs, they (at least the data portion) belongs to the IP owner - it's just that the IP owner has already sold 10,000 CDs' worth of licensing rights.

Thus, duplicating the data for yourself without purchasing these licensing rights is stealing, just like the assembly plant example. The only difference is that the assembly plant seems more direct because you actually signed this agreement, whereas the IP/copyright issue is indirect because it's mandated by the rule of law, not a specific agreement that anybody/everybody signs.

 

[Mise]

How about this:

You are tasked with building rubber balls. Under your employment contract, every ball you create must go in a certain bin, and the plant owner will then sell them all. If you create 30 balls, then they all belong to the owner and he'll sell them. If you create 50 balls, then they all belong to the owner and he'll sell them.

Now consider the fact that you created 30 balls yesterday. Today, you create 30 balls, and then an extra ball that you will keep for yourself. Would it not be accurate to call taking the extra ball stealing?

Intellectual property is no different. Except instead of a specific employment contract, it's that all of society has a contract with intellectual property owners via the rule of law, that any created copies belong to the IP owner. I'm pretty sure that when a manufacturer creates 10,000 CDs, as well as copying the data onto the CDs, they (at least the data portion) belongs to the IP owner - it's just that the IP owner has already sold 10,000 CDs' worth of licensing rights.

Thus, duplicating the data for yourself without purchasing these licensing rights is stealing, just like the assembly plant example. The only difference is that the assembly plant seems more direct because you actually signed this agreement, whereas the IP/copyright issue is indirect because it's mandated by the rule of law, not a specific agreement that anybody/everybody signs.

But the employer is, presumably, being deprived of some raw materials being used to create the balls; the IP owner is not being deprived of anything at all. If you used your own raw materials, but did made some new balls at work using work equipment, the situation would be much less clear cut. And taking it one step further, surely no-one would expect you to hand over any balls you create in your own home, after you leave work, using your own raw materials, would they? That, to me, seems a much more accurate analogy, because the original IP creator has absolutely no involvement in the ball-creation process in question.

 

[JollyRoger]

The property owner could have made money. But imagine you're standing outside a shop. You might decide to go in, in which case you see something you like and you buy it. But then you remember that American Idol is on TV and if you go into the shop, you will miss it! So you decide not to go in, and therefore deprive the shop-owner of a sale. Does that mean that American Idol has stolen from the shop?

In this case you didn't even go in the shop and take what is not yours, wheras the unauthorized duplication creates something that is not yours and you decide to keep it anyway.

But the employer is, presumably, being deprived of some raw materials being used to create the balls; the IP owner is not being deprived of anything at all.

The raw material is the digital content.

 

[uppi]

Since it is the rightholder's exclusive right to copy (or delegate copying), any copy is owned by the copyright holder not the unauthorized copier. This is not throwing a journal in a trash bin, this is a person with criminal intent keeping something (the copy) that is another's at the point of creation (in this case "creation" being duplication). The copyright holder owns the content and the right to distribute the content. Any unauthorized duplication just creates more copies of the content owned by the copyright holder. The ownership is from the point of the duplication - the duplicator never has rightful ownership - just criminally motivated possession of something that belongs to someone else. Creation/dispossession are concurrent.

You can repeat yourself as many times as you want, but as long as you do not give a reason or address the points, you are not going to convince anyone.

One source of the disagreement is probably that you as a lawyer are probably more likely to make money from my copyright (however unlikely that is) than me as the author.


Anyway, one big issue that has not been addressed in this thread is that by repeating the incorrect notion that copyright infringement is theft of IP, one actually plays down real theft of IP, which goes by the name of plagiarism and is much worse than mere copyright infringement.

 

[Arwon]

Copies made with the intent of a legitimate back up would not be subject to criminal prosecution as you have the intent of preserving your right to the digital content rather than having a thievarous intent.

In Australia until 2006 this was actually illegal. You couldn't make copies of your own legitimately purchased media or transfer formats or anything of that nature.

 

[Arwon]

Also, HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC

 

[Akka]

No, but I think the better analogy is this:

You are outside a store, see something you want for $500. Decide that is too much, and walk down the street. In an alleyway, you find a black market dealer who sells the same product for $10 (may as well be $0, as this is the case in most torrenting sites). The goods are obviously stolen; are you complicit to the theft for buying this as opposed to the $500 product?

The main difference is that the products aren't "stolen" per se, but "duplicated".

I suppose this does not apply to people who buy an album and share it P2P. But it does apply to a lot of P2P sharing, which is based off of an initial and undeniable theft of IP. You can never really know if what you are receiving is stolen or not.

No, it's not "theft of IP", it's "violation of copyright".
"Theft of IP" would be to take ownership of the IP, not to duplicate it - for exemple, if I go to make people think I'm the one who created Harry Potter, I would be commiting a theft of IP toward Rowling, taking the IP while depriving the author of it.
Attempting to merge the idea of "theft" and "copyright violation" is a deliberate intellectual dishonesty made by those who will benefit from the confusion and who want to emotionnaly load the terms, but the two are VERY different things.

 

[Mise]

In this case you didn't even go in the shop and take what is not yours, wheras the unauthorized duplication creates something that is not yours and you decide to keep it anyway.

The raw material is the digital content.

And they're not being deprived of any digital content, because their stock of raw materials remains unchanged. They still have exactly as much digital content as they did before the act. In creating a ball at work, you are depleting their stock of raw materials, whereas downloading digital content does not. As I said, they have X balls before the act, and X balls after the act. They may be losing a potential sale, but then so is going home to watch X-factor.

As uppi said, unless you actually address the points that we are making, you're not going to convince anyone...

Sent from a phone, apols for any mistakes.

 

[Silurian]

And they're not being deprived of any digital content, because their stock of raw materials remains unchanged. They still have exactly as much digital content as they did before the act. In creating a ball at work, you are depleting their stock of raw materials, whereas downloading digital content does not. As I said, they have X balls before the act, and X balls after the act. They may be losing a potential sale, but then so is going home to watch X-factor.

As uppi said, unless you actually address the points that we are making, you're not going to convince anyone...

Sent from a phone, apols for any mistakes.

I have not read all the thread but

What happens if Mise is selling a stock tipping service with the tips sent by e-mail. one of the conditions of the sale of information is that the e-mail will not be forwarded.

So Silurian pays Mise £x for the service and gets some good tips.
Silurian forwards the e-mail to all his friends.

Has Mise lost anything and what should happen to Silurian.

 

[uppi]

I have not read all the thread but

What happens if Mise is selling a stock tipping service with the tips sent by e-mail. one of the conditions of the sale of information is that the e-mail will not be forwarded.

So Silurian pays Mise £x for the service and gets some good tips.
Silurian forwards the e-mail to all his friends.

Has Mise lost anything and what should happen to Silurian.

In this case it it not the copyright infringement but the breach of the confidentiality agreement that is the problem here. If you didn't forward the email to all your friends, but called them and summarized the stock tips for them, you would not infringe on Mise's copyright, but the damage would be the same.

 

[illram]

"Theft of IP" would be to take ownership of the IP, not to duplicate it - for exemple, if I go to make people think I'm the one who created Harry Potter, I would be commiting a theft of IP toward Rowling, taking the IP while depriving the author of it.
Attempting to merge the idea of "theft" and "copyright violation" is a deliberate intellectual dishonesty made by those who will benefit from the confusion and who want to emotionnaly load the terms, but the two are VERY different things.

I don't think IP infringement is theft, but I don't think calling it theft is necessarily as utterly crazy as everyone is saying. Before all of you shoot me and skin me alive, let me explain. If you "own" IP, you own what is known as the "bundle of rights." (Also a term of art applied to normal property.) One of those rights is the right to control that work's redistribution. So if you copy something, you are technically infringing on one of those rights. Since it is intangible property we are talking about, yes, I personally feel that it is sort of awkward to carry that to the next step and analogize that to physically taking property, but I think the perspective of those who do want to call it theft is that since there is nothing "owned" other than these intangible rights, "taking" one of those rights (i.e., by doing one of the things to the IP which you are not authorized to do) is like taking anything else that is not yours.

Again, I agree that calling IP infringement theft is sort of propaganda term, but the perspective is not totally divorced from reality. It does make logical sense and I don't think it is intellectual dishonesty, but I agree that the reason many do so is, as you say, for the purposes of appealing to emotion.

 

[JollyRoger]

So how about "Taking something that is not yours, but not thieving, really"?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

If I take something out of the garbage I am taking something that is not mine and I am not thiving.

 

[illram]

So how about "Taking something that is not yours, but not thieving, really"?

Yeah pretty much. Or "taking an intangible thing that is technically not yours but in certain circumstances either is yours based on judicial interpretation of current law, or is not yours but you are allowed to take if you use it for certain purposes, but not thieving, really."

 

[holy king]

Can I walk freely into a concert because my presence does not add to the marginal cost?

by law? no.

by my own warped moral code? of course.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Can I walk freely into a concert because my presence does not add to the marginal cost?

Someone I know actually did do that. The security guards were ok with it.

 

[Akka]

I don't think IP infringement is theft, but I don't think calling it theft is necessarily as utterly crazy as everyone is saying.

It's not "crazy", it's "dishonest".
Of course there is some kind of similarity between some part of the concepts. This is precisely there is so many attempt to paint them in the same light. But the differences are still rather clear, and in a thread where so many people explained so many time the actual differences, acting as if there was none is just bullcrap and pure, raw, total bad faith.

In fact it would be akin to trolling - saying something you know to be false in order to push emotional answer.

Before all of you shoot me and skin me alive, let me explain. If you "own" IP, you own what is known as the "bundle of rights." (Also a term of art applied to normal property.) One of those rights is the right to control that work's redistribution. So if you copy something, you are technically infringing on one of those rights. Since it is intangible property we are talking about, yes, I personally feel that it is sort of awkward to carry that to the next step and analogize that to physically taking property, but I think the perspective of those who do want to call it theft is that since there is nothing "owned" other than these intangible rights, "taking" one of those rights (i.e., by doing one of the things to the IP which you are not authorized to do) is like taking anything else that is not yours.

Either someone want to nitpick about legal terminology, or he accepts to talk about concepts in general.
In the first case, copyright violation and theft are clearly different and fall under different legislations and penalties. So in the first case it's bogus.
In the second case, you're talking about general concepts and what should/could be, and as such using legal fine print is intellectually dishonest.

The pathetic display of bad faith and deliberate idiocy we've seen in the last few pages is just an attempt at trying to use only the convenient part of the two methods - using legal technicality to bring up some rights and ignore the "what law SHOULD be", and then switching to general concepts to make bogus equivalence and ignore the legal details that shoot down the argument in the first place.
That's "punch me in the face for being a trolling smart-ass" material.

Again, I agree that calling IP infringement theft is sort of propaganda term

Everything is summed up here.

but the perspective is not totally divorced from reality. It does make logical sense and I don't think it is intellectual dishonesty, but I agree that the reason many do so is, as you say, for the purposes of appealing to emotion.

"It's not intellectual dishonesty, it's just travesting reality to fallaciously support a point".
Err... and intellectual dishonesty is WHAT ?

 

[Luckymoose]

In Australia until 2006 this was actually illegal. You couldn't make copies of your own legitimately purchased media or transfer formats or anything of that nature.

It is still illegal to make make your own mix cds, or copy games or movies to backup discs, technically, because you don't actually own the media, you just own the rights to one copy of the media. That is why I could care less for major corporations.