Copying is not stealing, mmmkay?
I just left this on my friend Richard's blog when he discussed the "copying CDs is stealing" issue. I've been struggling with this for many years (one reason why I haven't made a CD in a while, I'm morally unsure of what it means anymore), but I'm slowly getting to a place where I think I am starting to understand this fully...
"Illegal downloading ( Read more... )
"Illegal downloading ( Read more... )
To reiterate: the crime of theft has as much to do with the crime of copyright infringement as it has to to with the crime of bigamy. That's what the law (correctly) says, and that's the first thing that people have to understand when discussing these issues. If you do not clearly differentiate these things from the start then you are invariably going to end up with a completely nonsensical discussion that bears no relationship to either law or reality.
The "crime" of letting people watch a movie for free is an interesting example actually: if you let people into the movie theater for free, AFAIK it is NOT a copyright infringement crime since showing a movie in the theater is defined as a public performance. The crime you'd actually be committing would be something like trespassing i.e. the crime is in them entering the building without authorization, not in what they watch after they come in. Otherwise you'd end up with the "crime" of letting people come round your house to watch a DVD.
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Theft of services is legally recognized and would apply to the theater situation as you bypassed the pay gate. I realize it's a gray area, but in theory, any claim of ownership or a disruption of any business model could be followed by a claim of theft.
I can think of many of software company that went under due to piracy. Clearly there's something to be said for controlling access to costly, high value, low volume virtual goods as the high volume free model wouldn't work.
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