this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

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[–] WindowsEnjoyer 76 points 11 months ago (23 children)
  • When you take 5 eur from my pocket - you are stealing.
  • When you take 5 eur from my pocket, make a copy and put my original 5 eur back to my pocket - this is not stealing.
[–] [email protected] 90 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Further to that, paying for a product then the seller taking that product away from you without refunding your payment is stealing.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

Don't forget adjusting for inflation and real money being given back not some shitty gift card

[–] WindowsEnjoyer 7 points 11 months ago

YES! This IS stealing!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Man does "Google Nest" come to mind. Buys company. Pushes it all over the place. "Eh, I think we're done. Whole ecosystem useless now."

Which is par for the course with Google and not at all a surprise, but sheesh.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (6 children)

That's not a fair example, because 5 Euros has an intrinsic value. The theft here is of intellectual property. Here's an analogy:

  • When you take a book from a book store without paying for it, you are stealing.
  • When you take a book from a book store without paying for it, make an exact replication of it and return the original, you are stealing intellectual property.
[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (16 children)

Stealing involves depriving the original owner of access or possession of the item. Duplication is not stealing because the item being duplicated is not taken away.

Even if you consider it stealing, then what defense do you have for the people who paid the price that would supposedly allow them to have it permanently and suddenly it still gets taken away? That's not stealing? Even if we accepted that piracy by people who didn't pay is theft, why should people who already paid for the media not be able to access it from somewhere else if their original access is denied?

[–] JohnDClay 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

By duplicating, you're depriving the company to the exclusive right to copy that thing. But I don't think stealing some nebulous concept of a monopoly like that is wrong.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

The keywords: company and monopoly.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (8 children)

The action is still harmless. Information should be free.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine---too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away.

https://www.rogerclarke.com/II/IWtbF.html

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

How is creating a popular a novel any different than creating a popular object? Hundreds of hours of labor go into both and the creators are entitled to the full value of said labor.

Say you have an amazing story about the vacation you took last year, and told all your friends about it. You would justifiably be pissed if you later found out one of your friends was telling that story as if they had done it. It's the same for someone who writes a book or any other form of media.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We aren't talking about plagiarism, the friend would be telling the story about you still.

Spoken word narratives are such an integral part of culture, imagine if your grandpa told you to never repeat any of the stories of his childhood because "he owns the copywrite". Insane. That's what you are suggesting.

Ideas are not objects. Having good ideas shared incurs no loss to anybody, except imagined "lost potential value".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm saying that those who create are entitled to the value of what they create. If a company asks to look iver some of your work before hiring you, says that they aren't interested, and then you see them using that work afterwards i doubt you would be saying "well, information should be free".

If you want to write stories, draw pictures, make movies or webshows and distribute then for free ti everyone, then that's a noble initiative, but creatives depend on what they create for their livelyhood.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

saying that those who create are entitled to the value of what they create.

Here I was thinking we all deserved a giant meteor.

The publisher example is one of a difference in power and you're saying that IP is there to protect the author. Except this whole video is about how that doesn't happen anymore. The law is written and litigated by those with power.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

That second dot should be when you make an identical copy of the book without taking it from the shelf. When I get an unlicensed copy of a book, the original is never out of place, not for a moment

Piracy was huge in Australia back when films were released at staggered times across the world. If it was a winter release in America, it would release six months later in the Australian winter. Try avoiding spoilers online for six months.

Piracy is less now because things are released everywhere at once and we aren't harmed by a late release

Now when companies pull shit like deleting content you think you bought, they encourage people to go around them. Play Station can't be trusted? Well there are piracy channels that cost only a VPN subscription (and only while you're collecting media, not after, while watching and storing it) and people will be pushed to those

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Some people would call it counterfeiting but we won't do that , right ?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Depends on the intention. Most “illegal” copies are distributed for free so that’s not counterfeiting (there’s no intention to deceive or defraud)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's probably going into semantics and what the law says, it's different for every country.

What's happening with games and softwares are cracks and repacking, it's manipulating few parts of the original product to provide partial or sometimes full functionality. This is an infringement of intellectual property and not a counterfeit.

For podcasts, music and movies it's usually a rip, out of vinyls, lossless or a high definition source. These are copies, not manipulated in any way.

Maybe camrips are truly a counterfeit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

... This is an infringement of intellectual property ...

Not unless it's distributed.

Copying copyrighted works is not a crime. Distributing those copies is a crime.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I have yet to see country that doesn't mind copying their currency unofficially but I'm open to suggestions 🫡

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Put 5 eur in my pocket and i have to dance

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

The "taking a physical object" analogy doesn't even give us anything useful.

Most stores of perishable goods don't want to hold onto their stock; they want to give it away, ideally in a way that makes them money. In many countries, they will even give away the last excess to homeless people that would not reasonably be able to afford it.

If there's one orange seller in a town that's put effort into a supply train to bring oranges there, but someone has shared a magic spell that lets them xerox oranges off the shelf, then that orange seller never gets paid, and has no livelihood; it doesn't help him that he still has all of the oranges he brought to market, he's not going to eat them all himself.

I expect the morally deprived will answer "Not my problem." Yet, it's going to be an issue for them when they try to run their own business.

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