Piracy is theft

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

93EXCivic said:

Going back to the original thing that started this thread, no longer made video games, I understand that downloading these games is illegal but I fail to see how it is morally wrong. The company is no longer making money of these games so downloading isn't affecting their bottom line (and therefore their employees).

It's rare that the rights didn't get passed on to someone or purchased by somone.  Rodgers and Hammerstein have been dead for decades, but MTI purchased the rights, which means I can't perform Oklahoma without licensing first.  Elvis Pressley died 40 years ago, but the rights were passed on to his family.

Unless the rights-holding entity has decided it is no longer profitable to hold onto the rights and has released them, (open rights, open domain, or royalty-free) someone owns the rights to it.  Atari has been defunct for decades, but someone owns the rights to the games (Konami, maybe?)

Yes but with plays or music there is active use to make money ie plays being performed or music being streamed or sold. These old video games do not have this.

And here I was looking to buy these things and now and I am confused on whether I should call them first and ask whether they were provided with written permission from Mazda to manufacture and sell them. 

In reply to Duke :

Broken down over 8 months, the data saved by my add blocker would DOUBLE my monthly bill. Double, just for ads. That's moral for either party?

Morality is relative. 

Apis Mellifera said:

Duke said:

Apis Mellifera said:

You guys are missing my point.

And you are missing our point.

Cloning a product and then using that clone deprives the creator of a sale they are legitimately entitled to.

That is harm to the creator.

And again, the library deprives a creator innumerable sales. 

Except you keep ignoring that 1) library lending is specifically allowed in US copyright law, and 2) none of the borrowers gets to keep the material permanently.  The library temporarily lends them their right-of-use and while the media is checked out it cannot also be checked out by someone else.  That's why they're called "lending libraries".  When the user's temporary license expires, the right-of-use reverts to the library (theoretically along with the media) and waits for another borrower to temporarily borrow the library's rights.

The First Sale doctrine gives the original purchaser right to use and or dispose of the individual purchased copy in any way they see fit.  It does not grant the purchaser any rights to the underlying copyrighted material at all.  This First Sale right-of-use is what is transferred when a physical media or electonic license changes hands, by gift or sale or loan.  Again, these rights do not extend to the intellectual property itself - just to the individual copy.  There is no right to make more of the item on the part of the purchaser.  This is the fundamental difference you're ignoring.

Some article said:

Every day, millions of consumers make use of the first sale doctrine. This copyright doctrine permits the purchaser of a legal copy of a copyrighted work to treat that copy in any way he or she desires, as long as the copyright owner's exclusive copyright rights are not infringed. This means the copy can be destroyed, sold, given away, or rented.

A common example is the rental of movie videos, where the store purchasing the disks is entitled to rent them out without paying any royalties to the owner of the copyright rights in the movie. The term "first-sale doctrine" comes from the fact that the copyright owner maintains control over a specific copy only until it is first sold.

It is important to remember that the first sale doctrine is very narrow. It applies only to a specific copy. No rights are granted as to the underlying work.

For example, except as provided in the Copyright Act of 1976, the owner [of the copy] cannot reproduce, adapt, publish, or perform the work without the authorization of the author. All that the consumer can do is to dispose of the particular copy that has been purchased. For example, the first sale doctrine does not permit the owner of a book of copyrighted art prints to separate the prints, mount them in frames, and sell them separately.

Moreover, the first sale doctrine applies only to the owner of the work, not to a person who possesses the property but does not own it. For example, imagine that a store purchases a lawfully made copy of the movie, Gone With the Wind. As the owner of that copy, the store can rent it to an individual. However, the person renting it cannot rent the copy to someone else. Only the owner of the copy has such rights.

RevRico said:

In reply to Duke :

Broken down over 8 months, the data saved by my add blocker would DOUBLE my monthly bill. Double, just for ads. That's moral for either party?

Morality is relative.

Not in this case it is not.  It is perfectly moral for the provider of the product you wish to consume to charge whatever they want for it.  I literally don't care if it would quintuple our monthly data bills.  The providers of this service get to set their pricing, not you and I.  Morally, we get to decide whether that price is worth it to us or not.  That's the extent of our rights in the matter.

If ads-or-subscription is a condition of using this site that the owners choose to enforce, that is entirely, 100% their right.  It is also their right not to enforce it, which apprently they don't.  Either way, that decision is one the content creator gets to make, not the consumer.

In reply to Duke :

Ever go to a library and photocopy pages of a repair manual?

I mean, they even have a copier there in the reference book section for this purpose, a few cents per page.

Is the library giving a kickback from that, or keeping it for themselves?

Slippery said:

And here I was looking to buy these things and now and I am confused on whether I should call them first and ask whether they were provided with written permission from Mazda to manufacture and sell them. 

Dorman sells reproductions of parts.  They buy new parts to copy from, too!

The interesting thing, tying this together, is that some manufacturers (Chrysler) deliberately put strange bends and stuff in things like A/C lines and copyright/patent the design, specifically to prevent the aftermarket from duplicating them...

GameboyRMH said:

yupididit said:

So, where can I get a golden eye emulator and prefect dark? Because my N64 is no longer working anymore. I also need Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask.

You need to either hunt around on eBay and find a used N64 (and maybe those games) to take rightful ownership on the chain of intellectual property, or you can just sit in a corner and feel sad while getting the exact same amount of money to any of the developers involved

Or you could DM me for further instructions

I've already covered the money part with the First Sale doctrine material above.

Like I said, I'm not the police.  It's not my duty to prevent you or punish you for pirating other people's property.  Do what your conscience permits.

But your conscience's permission doesn't make it moral, right, or legal, though.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Duke :

Ever go to a library and photocopy pages of a repair manual?

I mean, they even have a copier there in the reference book section for this purpose, a few cents per page.

Is the library giving a kickback from that, or keeping it for themselves?

The Association of College & Research Libraries said:

Fair use is a statutory exception to the copyright holder's bundle of exclusive rights. It allows for the unlicensed (that is, without permission or payment of royalty) use of a copyrighted work where the balance of several factors weighs in favor of such use. Four of these factors are specifically enumerated in the statute. Application of fair use requires a factual analysis of these four factors as applied to the facts of the proposed use. Although no single factor is determinative, recent court decisions reveal that transformative use is an important consideration as is the potential harm to the market for the copyrighted work.

The four statutory factors of fair use are:

1. The purpose and character of the proposed use
2. The nature of the work being used
3. The amount of the work being used
4. The effect of the use upon the market for the copyrighted work

Fair Use allows for limited reproduction, royalty free, without infringing on the creator's rights. If you really care, and aren't just instigating, here are some places to read up on it:

https://acrl.libguides.com/scholcomm/toolkit/fairuse

https://www.loc.gov/legal/understanding-copyright/

https://libguides.ala.org/copyright/fairuse

You keep making the definitive statement of things being either moral or immoral.  Can you provide a source for these moral imperatives as you did with the First Sales Doctrine?

Thou shalt not steal.

Moral enough for you?

Apis Mellifera said:

And again, the library deprives a creator innumerable sales.  One at a time, true, fair use (whomever gets to define that term), true, but like a piracy site, the consumer has not paid their due.  The library has purchased the same DVD I might buy at Wal-Mart, but they are allowed to share it with their friends ad infinitum and a pirate isn't doing the same thing?  One is OK and the other isn't, apparently.  A clone product doesn't necessarily automatically equate to a lost sale.  A consumer could chose to watch a pirated movie or not watch it because they aren't willing to buy a legitimate copy. There is no difference to the creator in those scenarios.

The consumer is going to do *something* at the point in time at which they are or are not going to watch a pirated movie. Maybe there's a movie they're willing to pay for, at which point they are once again participating in the market in which the creator works. Maybe they buy a cheap video game. Maybe they go get ice cream. They interact with the world which we're trying to fix here.

I cannot overstate how strongly I believe that The Market is not some freaking oracle or the right way to decide any number of things that it gets tasked with all too often, but it is bonkers to suggest that there is no material difference between using a pirated artifact and doing nothing. I genuinely have a hard time believing that anybody can argue that in good faith. That it might be acceptable under some circumstances, I can get. That there should be rules that allow this under the right conditions, fine. But the idea that it is functionally identical to no action is the definition of inaccurate. I suspect that this comes back to that tendency not to think about things in terms of hundreds of millions of people taking a particular action.

That also skims over the fact that the library is a special case, that it makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD that it can only be loaned out to a small number of people or an individual at a time (if a theater could only seat one person or could seat five hundred and gave one free showing, would there be any difference in who would attend the next showing for $20/seat?).

And maybe that last point is another entry for reason, or maybe it's a bad leap too far (I think we've already had a few "take your idea to its (il)logical conclusion" would-be "refutations"): If you argue that as soon as something can be loaned out by a library,  it's effectively the same as being universally available for free, then we will see the immediate end of libraries, because it makes no sense to allow a work to be infinitely duplicated instantly for no compensation. And yet libraries have value, so we want to have rules which both allow the compensation of the creators of works AND allow limited use throttled so as to make it accessible for those for whom that is a reasonable tradeoff, while collecting money from those not willing to wait for availability via the library, or to jump through the particular hoops needed to use it for access. Therefore, we need a set of rules that allows for some reasonable gradient between "Every user ever must pay the original full license fee and existence can be revoked at will" and "Free for all instantly and forever."

Possibly the weirdest thing about this thread, and in some weird way hopeful (for the concept of discourse and progress), is that I think I probably find myself agreeing with Duke as often as I do in this thread (though not completely), since broadly and historically I have the impression we live on opposite ends of the spectrum where emphasizing The Market's role in societal decision making is concerned.

And in Duke's last post (EDIT: too slow, the earlier one where he referenced first assignment or whatever the proper name is) I'm reminded again of my point about arguing what we should do vs arguing what existing rules/laws apply. I believe that to be accurate, but we're talking about using a law from 1976, when even duplication had a significant barrier. We're eventually going to have to address how to appropriately compensate creators without pretending that the world hasn't changed, or trying to ban technology that changes it.

Okay: A convenient and universal micropayment system which allows users to pay that $0.03 to the original artist without paying $0.90 for advertising and administrivia. Maybe $0.05 for bandwidth and server maintenance. The same reassuring facades that require $10 to rent a movie online are the same ones (and only ones) that have the millions of dollars to pump into a blockbuster production, but are also the same ones who will only make what they are sure will be a blockbuster, because they need to recoup that $120M... No unusual ideas, characters, etc... The same reason we have near-spec cars in F1; the show is too lucrative to pass up and too expensive to leave to chance. My numbers are not well thought out, but I think the premise is good. This is part of the resistance to the payments that we make; we do not feel that we are in a free market in many ways; our choices are minimized by the entities which own the channels of distribution. This something the Internet was supposed to help with. And may yet. "Take it or leave it" is a sane legal statement of the issue of someone offering a thing for $X, but society gets to consider whether that should continue to be the case if it doesn't seem right. Contexts change.

The constraints on usage which appear unreasonable to some are part of what has created a backlash that regards almost any price as too high. Software is expensive to write in real person-hours. I'd love to see the math on small game houses. I know my cousin as part of a two-person audio software company isn't overcompensated in any bizarre way that people seem to think is just intrinsic to "owning a software company." My impression is that he makes... software developer money and works very very hard on what he loves working on, which is preferable to taking a larger-money role as a developer doing... e-commerce or what have you. I can feel the truth of the idea that folks stealing his software are cutting into his cats' emergency vet fund. That sounds silly, but I want that to sink in: I think a bunch of folks think that role means that theft might deprive him of an extra Lamborghini, when the reality is that IIRC he drives a 20-year-old Integra and has to actually think about what it costs when one of his beloved cats needs serious care. I'm sure he could drive a newer, nicer car if he cared, but it's not as though he's got so much money flying around that he'd do it on a whim. One of many issues of painting with a broad brush.

In reply to Duke :

According to whose morals though? Yours? Mine? King James Bible? The Torah? The constitution? Everybody's morals are different, and moral compasses are aligned differently. 

"It's immoral because it's illegal"A 2009 study and book by Harvey Silverglate found the  average American citizen commits 3 felonies a day, often without even realizing it. How many more laws have been passed since then?

I find it perfectly acceptable to download and use digital media however I see fit, because once something is on the internet, it is there forever, and widely available.  Especially if I can no longer go buy said media anywhere, if it was even available locally in the first place.  this does not mean blatant infringement, or profiting off of something. Personal use is fine by me, using it for profit is where it crosses my theft line. 

If laws could actually be updated, instead of amended, or people actually understand technology could be put in charge of regulating technology, with some common sense and some  minor and temporary ​​​​advantages to the producers. 5, maybe 10 year window before things go public domain, and penalties that don't result in fines that are bigger than the national budget (Which to me has made the whole piracy bad thing a giant berkeleying joke since the beginning, 05-06 had I been hit with the maximum penalty, I'd have been looking at $5-6 TRILLION in fines) for infringement. 

I find it completely immoral, on the other hand, to salary employees to 50 hours a week, work them 80, and pay them for 40. I think that turning gaming into a service is immoral, despite being legal and profitable, because it has jacked prices up through the roof while quality sinks through the basement, and leads to a churn of endless garbage that little kids with their parents credit cards and no common sense buy up like there's no tomorrow suggesting that it's a good thing for the company. 

I don't necessarily think is immoral to give your kids unfettered access like that, just idiotic. 

I also think creating artificial scarcity for profit push is fairly immoral as well. 

But that's just it, my morals, my moral compass. Maybe it aligns with others, maybe it doesn't.

It is interesting though, I've been here about 6 years now, I think this is the first time we've been polar opposites on something. I appreciate seeing your point of view, while I disagree with portions of it, I appreciate that we can talk fairly civilly about it. 

Duke said:

Thou shalt not steal.

Moral enough for you?

 

68.89% of the population does not recognize that moral authority at all, and of those who do practice that particular theology, only ~24% prescribe to the Old Testament. So no, that is not moral enough for this discussion. 

In reply to Duke :

Absolutely, as I suspected, and I am with you 100% in all the rest your statement implies, but that is not a universally enforced standard at this time.

Javelin said:

Duke said:

Thou shalt not steal.

Moral enough for you?

 

68.89% of the population does not recognize that moral authority at all, and of those who do practice that particular theology, only ~24% prescribe to the Old Testament. So no, that is not moral enough for this discussion. 

If we're going to argue moral vs. Legal and we're going to use commandments, we're going to use the separation of church and state. Morals (and the subsequent laws they're based on) are completely subjective. But, as has probably been stayed before me, that's a whole different discussion.

Duke said:

Thou shalt not steal.

Moral enough for you?

 

Many Jewish scholars believe that the stealing refered to in the ten commandments is in regards to stealing a human  aka kidnapping.

But ignoring that I don't agree that it is stealing in a moral sense if the thing being reproduced is no longer available for sale or used for money making purposes.

Many people will not pick up money laying on the sidewalk because that was someone else's and it is stealing to take it.

Downloading software that is no longer being sold is akin to picking up a penny off the street.  They aren't coming back for it.

yupididit said:

Alright, I think this thread has gone as far as it can. 

 

So, where can I get a golden eye emulator and prefect dark? Because my N64 is no longer working anymore. I also need Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask.

You can get perfect dark on PlayStation and Xbox. Rare Replay is cheap, even new. List of included games. It's also on gamepass if you use Xbox. 

If you can wait a bit longer Sounds like Golden eye is coming back with the achievement list up and s few unlocks from testers, I don't imagine it'll be a long wait. 

I had an n64 emulator on my old laptop, but I used a wired Xbox controller because it's what I had. Makes things very difficult, and I don't recommend it unless you can find a working N64 controller, a Nintendo to USB adapter, and drivers to make it play nice. I'm not aware of any options for those things, but I also haven't looked in a while. The layouts just didn't work for me on Mario 64 or BMX XXX. 

Duke said:

You are entitled to make backups of properties you already legally own.  Not once owned.  If you have sold or lost or given away the property, then you have lost your right to it. 

I haven't heard this, can you give any legal precedent or references to it?

I'm not getting into this argument, but this sounded interesting to me so I'd just like more knowledge about it.

Javelin said:

Duke said:

Thou shalt not steal.

Moral enough for you?

 

68.89% of the population does not recognize that moral authority at all, and of those who do practice that particular theology, only ~24% prescribe to the Old Testament. So no, that is not moral enough for this discussion. 

One need not care for the source quoted to agree with the content. 

Theft, noun  

The generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use 

So how is piracy not theft?
Because the "another" is already rich enough?

Because we don't know who the "other" actually is, so they must not care?

Mr_Asa said:

Duke said:

You are entitled to make backups of properties you already legally own.  Not once owned.  If you have sold or lost or given away the property, then you have lost your right to it. 

I haven't heard this, can you give any legal precedent or references to it?

I'm not getting into this argument, but this sounded interesting to me so I'd just like more knowledge about it.

Actually, in many cases you aren't legally allowed to backup stuff you own.  Getting around DRM is illegal, period.

RevRico said:

That's starting to sound like Sony's argument when they started suing ps3 owners for turning features of their consoles that existed at purchase back on after an update took them away. 

At what point does ownership change? 

I was thinking about Tesla extending the range on batteries remotely during hurricanes, as well as all the other bullE36 M3 that they do.  The customer has bought that battery, if they have the technical know how to access that capacity and access it then Tesla will sue them.  Why is that allowed?

Javelin said:

Duke said:

Thou shalt not steal.

Moral enough for you?

 

68.89% of the population does not recognize that moral authority at all, and of those who do practice that particular theology, only ~24% prescribe to the Old Testament. So no, that is not moral enough for this discussion. 

I'm 100% an atheist and have been for the better part of 50 years.  I still believe that Thou Shalt Not Steal is a moral imperative.