>be faceless void >mfw I have no face
The difficulty in all this is not whether you can justify piracy, or even whether it damages the devs. No, the question is, Is piracy theft? Currently it's illegal in many countries, but that doesn't mean it should be. And more than that, it boils down to Is it possible to steal intellectual property, or things which are immaterial?
Of course it's possible to steal intellectual property - it's what pirates do every time they pirate. I don't know how anybody couldn't see piracy as purely theft. They're taking the work and time of another creator, without authorization. They're taking information that they'd otherwise have to pay for, and doing so without paying. People can lie to themselves as much as they want, argue semantics, whatever. It's so blatantly theft.
"1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property" from merriam-webster.
When one pirates, one is not removing property from another's possession. If one were to cut and paste rather than copy and paste (as it were), then it would be stealing, again this assumes that data can be a person's property.
Pirates do not steal time and work.
If you go to a friend's house and read a book which he possesses, you are taking that information without paying. Is it stealing? No. So one does not in fact have to pay for all information.
Quote from name:Dem0nS1ayer
The difficulty in all this is not whether you can justify piracy, or even whether it damages the devs. No, the question is, Is piracy theft? Currently it's illegal in many countries, but that doesn't mean it should be. And more than that, it boils down to Is it possible to steal intellectual property, or things which are immaterial?
Well of course it should be illegal. If it wasn't, the game developers wouldn't get any money at all.
...but they wouldn't lose any, unless absolutely nobody bought the game. >:O
People would still buy games, pirates will still buy games, regardless of legality. And you still haven't shown how it's theft; instead you're saying that because the devs don't get money, it's wrong.
The difficulty in all this is not whether you can justify piracy, or even whether it damages the devs. No, the question is, Is piracy theft?
Your original post reads differently to me, as it already claims that piracy is theft and asks for justification.
My apologies; my understanding of the subject has changed since the original post.
And more than that, it boils down to Is it possible to steal intellectual property, or things which are immaterial?
For the most part, yes. If there's money to be made and you can take an idea from someone else, you're basically taking their money.
But you aren't taking their money, nor are you removing the idea from their possession.
Creating a search engine isn't stealing an existing search engine's idea, but replicating the exact algorithm a specific search engine uses is. I believe a good example of this type of thing is the early history of Facebook. Games work the same way: League of Legends wasn't stealing from MOBA games, but if they ripped the model, spells and stats of Pudge, they would be stealing from DotA (well, Blizzard for the Abomination model).
Again, you aren't removing the algorithms or models from the original producer.
If the phrase "you stole my idea" means anything to you, then yes.
How can one steal an idea? And let's keep in mind that all ideas stand on the shoulders of ideas before them. Halo 'stole' the idea of the FPS from iD Software (I think they were the first anyway) who stole the idea of a computer game from the pong guys who stole the idea of a computer program from charles babbage who stole the idea of ... Well you get the idea.
Taking something without permission is stealing.
Taking someones idea without permission is stealing.
It's not the taking something that's the problem. The problem lies within the not having permission.
How can you "take" an idea? How can you remove an idea from someone's possession? What if two people come up with the same idea separately? Does one steal from the other? What about people who take an idea and improve on it a little and sell it as their own (see every FPS in existence)? Is that stealing?
Red classic.
"In short, their absurdities are so extreme that it is painful even to quote them."