The argument that digital piracy is theft is predicated on the idea that pirating is depriving the creator of their rightful property: the money from a sale. In the absence of said sale, that money wasn’t their property to begin with, however. The only way to reconcile this is by treating potential income as property.
In doing so, a number of stupid things can be argued for:
Creating a new product is theft because it deprives the competition of their potential income.
Boycotting a company is theft because it deprives them of potential income.
Not purchasing a new phone is theft because it deprives the manufacturer of potential income.
Not hiring Tom because Bob was a better candidate is theft because it deprives Tom of potential income.
There’s a reason that piracy legally falls under copyright infringement rather than theft. You aren’t depriving the creator of property by making a new digital copy of their media, but you are violating their copyright by creating an unauthorized copy.
It is not the same logic. You are not ingesting the work of the creator by going to a competitor. The issue is that you are gaining something from the labor of the creator without compensating them for that labor (which they gain from). It is an unequal exchange that both parties have not agreed to. It is theft. Going to a competitor and buying from them is an equal exchange - you’re paying money for the product of their labor.
Everything else you’ve said continues to be dishonest because it is based on this very simple, fundamental flaw in your original argument.
You are still off the mark. Profiting off someone else’s work is not theft. Maybe a crime, maybe immoral, but it’s a separate concept. Theft specifically is bad because you lose something you have. Copyright infringement is considered bad because we want people to be incentivised to create original stuff, and we want people to feel like if they create original stuff, they get to have special rights over it.
You don’t steal an IP by piracy, you infringe on it. If you stole it, the original owner would not have it. The whole argument around theft and piracy is that by equating theft with piracy, we get to a false dichotomy that if we don’t prosecute the random pirate or OpenAI for infringing on copyright, we can’t prosecute car thieves or wage thieves or whatever either in all fairness. Which is not true. Societies with the concept of property but without the concept of copyright did and do exist.
It’s all fair if you say copyright should be protected, and infringement punished, but it’s as much not theft as it is not murder. I mean, since you harm IPs by piracy, and one can argue excessive piracy can “kill” an IP, would making a pirate copy be assault with a deadly weapon? Or vandalism? That’s why words have meanings, and different things have different names.
No, it’s exactly the same logic.
The argument that digital piracy is theft is predicated on the idea that pirating is depriving the creator of their rightful property: the money from a sale. In the absence of said sale, that money wasn’t their property to begin with, however. The only way to reconcile this is by treating potential income as property.
In doing so, a number of stupid things can be argued for:
Creating a new product is theft because it deprives the competition of their potential income.
Boycotting a company is theft because it deprives them of potential income.
Not purchasing a new phone is theft because it deprives the manufacturer of potential income.
Not hiring Tom because Bob was a better candidate is theft because it deprives Tom of potential income.
There’s a reason that piracy legally falls under copyright infringement rather than theft. You aren’t depriving the creator of property by making a new digital copy of their media, but you are violating their copyright by creating an unauthorized copy.
It is not the same logic. You are not ingesting the work of the creator by going to a competitor. The issue is that you are gaining something from the labor of the creator without compensating them for that labor (which they gain from). It is an unequal exchange that both parties have not agreed to. It is theft. Going to a competitor and buying from them is an equal exchange - you’re paying money for the product of their labor.
Everything else you’ve said continues to be dishonest because it is based on this very simple, fundamental flaw in your original argument.
You are still off the mark. Profiting off someone else’s work is not theft. Maybe a crime, maybe immoral, but it’s a separate concept. Theft specifically is bad because you lose something you have. Copyright infringement is considered bad because we want people to be incentivised to create original stuff, and we want people to feel like if they create original stuff, they get to have special rights over it.
You don’t steal an IP by piracy, you infringe on it. If you stole it, the original owner would not have it. The whole argument around theft and piracy is that by equating theft with piracy, we get to a false dichotomy that if we don’t prosecute the random pirate or OpenAI for infringing on copyright, we can’t prosecute car thieves or wage thieves or whatever either in all fairness. Which is not true. Societies with the concept of property but without the concept of copyright did and do exist.
It’s all fair if you say copyright should be protected, and infringement punished, but it’s as much not theft as it is not murder. I mean, since you harm IPs by piracy, and one can argue excessive piracy can “kill” an IP, would making a pirate copy be assault with a deadly weapon? Or vandalism? That’s why words have meanings, and different things have different names.