Is All Piracy Equal? Exploring Gray Areas: When Is It REALLY "Stealing" ??
- Thread starter GURPS
- Start date
Clem72
Well-Known Member
Just to be pedantic, it's never stealing. Stealing is defined as depriving the owner of their possession. Piracy (intellectual copyright infringement) doesn't meet that definition.
And at least according to the law, it's much worse. How much trouble would you be in for walking out of a Walmart with a Blu-Ray of Mama's Boy? Even if they prosecuted you it would be petty theft and depending on jurisdiction could have a maximum punishment of a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Meanwhile if you downloaded that same movie via BitTorrent and got caught, you could face 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
And at least according to the law, it's much worse. How much trouble would you be in for walking out of a Walmart with a Blu-Ray of Mama's Boy? Even if they prosecuted you it would be petty theft and depending on jurisdiction could have a maximum punishment of a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Meanwhile if you downloaded that same movie via BitTorrent and got caught, you could face 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Nope I cannot ' steal ' a digital copy of a Book, Movie or TV Show
Back in the day before Digital Media if you were motivated enough you could Xerox a Book or Magazine ... duplicate a Record on Reel to Real -then 8-Track then Cassette Finally Copying CD's
About the same time CD Duplication came about, so did Ripping to MP3
the only change is the level of the copying or sharing ... Digital makes the scale international
Rips or Copies of someone's Music Library are the only way to get copies of long out of publication
Yeah again a matter of scale .... but I do not think a claim can be made for revenue loss on potential sales,
Most Pirates were
NEVER GOING TO BUY THE ITEM ANYWAY
Especially Teenagers with no money or parents who refused to buy little johnny the latest C-Rap Album
Sure there are SOME Lazy / Casual Pirates ....
I said for years a simple all you can eat music license method was needed - I'll pay $ 20 bucks a month for a
Let me download all the Music Torrents I want - Music Companies do not even have to worry about hosting and bandwidth
LET THE CONSUMER handle the matter
Spotify isn't perfect, but I have not looked at my 2 tb iTunes collection in 3 yrs