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Journal Dirtside's Journal: Copying != theft. Three cheers for kneejerk reactions! 15

Journal by Dirtside

Well, looks like it's time to trot this out again.

Copying is not the same as theft.

To some, this is fairly obvious. Others, however, are apparently capable of mentally equating the process of duplicating information with the process of depriving someone of possession of something. The distinction is simple, however, so I'll explain here. Again.

If I have a car, and you steal it, I no longer have the car.

If I have a CD, and you copy that CD, I still have the CD.

I haven't said anything about copyright or other forms of intellectual property law -- but they are all rooted in this distinction. If you're going to argue that these actions are equivalently bad, you should be able to justify that with some reasons why.

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Copying != theft. Three cheers for kneejerk reactions! More

Copying != theft. Three cheers for kneejerk reactions!

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  • You spend 6 months working your day job and saving money to pay for the studio time to record your first CD. You have 500 copies made so that you can sell them at live shows and maybe get a few sold in the local record shop. You have worked to create property. Before you recorded those songs and got them ready for distribution, no property existed.

    You plan to justify that act of creation by selling that property. You like music, but you wouldn't have busted your butt waiting tables if you didn't think you'd make back the money spent on studio time. After all, you would like to be able to give your boss at the restaurant 2 weeks notice and spend more time writing songs.

    If someone comes along and steals that music by copying the CD, you have lost the opportunity to sell that person a CD b/c they already have one. That person has stolen the property that you created. You spent your hard earned money on studio time instead of buying a car. Instead of buying property in the form of a car, you have created it: It is the trunk full of CDs.

    You had hoped that busting your butt to make the first 500 CDs would pay off and allow you to make some money to get a larger batch made and maybe even give you enough income to let you focus 100% on making music.

    But no, somebody copied the CD and sent MP3s to all of his friends. Now there are a lot of people saying "that guy has talent", but fewer who actually want the CD. Someone quit at the restaurant and your boss won't let you have Fridays off anymore to do gigs.

    Oh well, you mutter. I should probably get a real job anyway.

    QED.
    • If someone comes along and steals that music by copying the CD, you have lost the opportunity to sell that person a CD b/c they already have one.
      Mmm... but what if they wouldn't have bought one anyway? Then you haven't "lost" anything. Also, I like the fact that you define copying as stealing here:
      If someone comes along and steals that music by copying the CD
      You're equating the two without explaining why the difference doesn't matter.
      That person has stolen the property that you created.
      They've stolen what, exactly? In other words, what is it that they now have that you no longer have? After all, if Bob steals your car, you no longer have the car. But if Bob copies a CD you made, you still have the CD, and all the information on it. So please, tell me what it is that's been stolen, exactly.

      At most, it's the opportunity to have made a sale -- but you can't even be sure Bob would have bought it if it wasn't available to be copied.

      If someone physically steals a CD from you, yeah, that's regular ol' theft, go after 'em with guns blazing. But if they copy something you have, that's a completely different area of law, which is why we have a name for it (copyright infringement). I haven't said a single damn word about whether copyright is a good idea here -- all I've said is that copying and theft are not the same thing. If they were the same thing, then why do we have separate names for them, and entirely separate bodies of law regarding them?

      At any rate, emotional hypotheticals about hard-working musicians don't prove anything. If you're trying to argue that copyright law is a good thing, then you're shouting at the tide; I never said it wasn't a good thing. If you're trying to argue that copying and theft are identical, you've done a pretty bad job of it. :)

      • They've stolen what, exactly? In other words, what is it that they now have that you no longer have?

        The ability to sell them the fruit of my labor. Webster's defines theft as 'the act of stealing, and stealing' as 'to take or appropriate without right or leave' and finally take is defined as 'obtain or secure for use'. Therefore, neither 'take' nor 'stealing' nor 'theft' are defined in terms of what the other person loses, but only in what you've gained illicitly.

        That said, you can still make the argument that copying does deprive someone of something. If Bob copies a CD I bought, no he is not depriving me of anything, but he is depriving the recording company. By our laws, which you say you support, Bob is taking access to the music without the right to do so. He is depriving the artists of the money he is supposed to pay for the right to listen to the song.

        The argument that he might not have bought the CD anyway is specious. If you look at the analagous situation with car theft, it doesn't matter if the owner was ever going to drive again. You can't use an ambiguity in whether the potential for sale might have become an actual sale to deflect from the fact that it is stealing, as defined by the dictionary and our laws.

        • The ability to sell them the fruit of my labor. Webster's defines theft as 'the act of stealing, and stealing' as 'to take or appropriate without right or leave' and finally take is defined as 'obtain or secure for use'. Therefore, neither 'take' nor 'stealing' nor 'theft' are defined in terms of what the other person loses, but only in what you've gained illicitly.
          Regardless of the particular usages of the words, the acts themselves are indeed materially different. It's unreasonable to separate the "acquires without permission" part from the "deprives owner of possession" part, and then pretend that both acts are therefore equivalent. Perhaps we need new words for the actions in question, since saying "He stole the car" does not describe an action that is isomorphic to "He stole the music". "He stole the car" can be translated to, "He took possession of the car, without permission of its owner, in such a way as to deprive the owner of possession of the car", but "He stole the music" cannot be translated the same way (substituting "music" for "car").
          By our laws, which you say you support,
          You assume too much. What I said was, "If you're trying to argue that copyright law is a good thing, then you're shouting at the tide; I never said it wasn't a good thing." Of course, I also never said that it is a good thing in its present incarnation. As it stands, I'm still undecided about what I think the ideal set of copyright laws should be. But even if I was decided, that would have no bearing on whether or not the two actions (copying without permission, physically taking without permission) are equivalent in any sense.
          Bob is taking access to the music without the right to do so. He is depriving the artists of the money he is supposed to pay for the right to listen to the song.
          Circular logic. Bob doesn't have the right to take access to the music, and is "supposed to pay" for that right, because the laws say so. Therefore, the laws should be that Bob doesn't have the right to take access? That's not a valid argument for why the laws should be that way, only a statement of what the laws are.
          The argument that he might not have bought the CD anyway is specious. If you look at the analagous situation with car theft, it doesn't matter if the owner was ever going to drive again.
          The analogy is faulty. When the act occurs (either copying or theft), you don't at that time have any way of knowing whether the original owner will make use of the object in question again. Even if someone did declare that he would never use his car again for any purpose, I wouldn't support someone taking it without permission, because there's no way to know whether the owner will change his mind.
          You can't use an ambiguity in whether the potential for sale might have become an actual sale to deflect from the fact that it is stealing, as defined by the dictionary and our laws.
          It's not stealing as defined by our laws. The legal act in question is copyright infringement, not larceny or theft -- they are considered separately. You cannot be prosecuted for larceny if what you have done is copyright infringement, and vice-versa.
          • Regardless of the particular usages of the words, the acts themselves are indeed materially different. It's unreasonable to separate the "acquires without permission" part from the "deprives owner of possession" part, and then pretend that both acts are therefore equivalent.

            Two concepts, acquire and deprive. In ye olden days of non-digital information, you could not distinguish the concepts, because in order to acquire something, you had to deprive someone else of its use. Today, because you can do one without the other, you wish to say that the word theft only applies to both actions together. Well, its a thin argument in my book. To me its clear that both actions involve wrongdoing, acquiring something without right, and depriving another of something.

            and is "supposed to pay" for that right, because the laws say so

            I said he was depriving the artists of money because I believe artists deserve to be compensated for their work. Not because the law says so.

            It's not stealing as defined by our laws

            I suppose that depends on what laws you want to check. I can't be bothered to go find any location that gives a definition of theft in law. You didn't give any indication that you were speaking in legal terms, so I referred to the most easily available dictionary. By the definition I found, theft can be interpreted as either acquiring, or depriving, in which case you're wrong, copying is theft.

            I got sidetracked in my original message. My only real intent was to say that copying can be interpreted as theft, simply because of the accpeted definition of theft. If you think theft only includes acts which both acquire and deprive at the same time, well, good luck with that. But there are a large number of people who disagree with you, and right or wrong, language is a consensual phenomenon, which means that if enough people believe a word means a given thing, that's what it means, no matter what the scholars say.

            But if you still want to debate the point, consider that the act of deprivation alone is not considered theft. What if I were to send a virus into someone's computer to wipe out all their data, but didn't have access to the data myself? What I have done is deprives the other of the data, but no reasonable person would call that theft. Sabotage perhaps? And analgous 'real world' act would be arson. No one I know would consider arson to be theft. That would lead me to believe that the bulk of the meaning lies in the act of acquisition, not in deprivation.

            • Two concepts, acquire and deprive. In ye olden days of non-digital information, you could not distinguish the concepts, because in order to acquire something, you had to deprive someone else of its use. Today, because you can do one without the other, you wish to say that the word theft only applies to both actions together. Well, its a thin argument in my book. To me its clear that both actions involve wrongdoing, acquiring something without right, and depriving another of something.
              And therefore, the acts are synonymous and should be treated equivalently?
              • wrongdoing - In a legal sense, I agree. If you commit either act, you have broken the law. The moral sense, however, is one meta-level above where we're discussing.
              • acquiring something without right - Ditto. It's "without right" in the sense that you don't have the legal right; the moral right is, again, one level up.
              • depriving another of something - The "somethings" are two different things -- a physical object in one case, and control over the distribution of information in another case. To claim that they are materially the same thing is, quite literally, beyond reason. Whether they should be treated the same way -- in either a moral code or a legal one -- is, once again, one level up.
              In any event, the legal aspect of these is circular. It's illegal, and therefore wrong. And since it's wrong, it should be illegal. If you say that it should be illegal because it's immoral, that's fine; but to claim that it's wrong because it's illegal is [insert synonym for "a really bad idea" here].
              I said he was depriving the artists of money because I believe artists deserve to be compensated for their work. Not because the law says so.
              For reference, what you said was:
              Bob is taking access to the music without the right to do so. He is depriving the artists of the money he is supposed to pay for the right to listen to the song.
              So you were stating your moral beliefs. Good to know. :) Nonetheless, irrelevant to the physical distinction between the acts described by "theft" and "copyright infringement".
              I suppose that depends on what laws you want to check. I can't be bothered to go find any location that gives a definition of theft in law. You didn't give any indication that you were speaking in legal terms, so I referred to the most easily available dictionary. By the definition I found, theft can be interpreted as either acquiring, or depriving, in which case you're wrong, copying is theft.
              Yeah, 'cause searching on Google for "legal definition of theft" is so difficult. Here's a few links to pages explaining what theft (i.e. larceny) is, in a legal sense:

              I got sidetracked in my original message. My only real intent was to say that copying can be interpreted as theft, simply because of the accpeted definition of theft. If you think theft only includes acts which both acquire and deprive at the same time, well, good luck with that. But there are a large number of people who disagree with you, and right or wrong, language is a consensual phenomenon, which means that if enough people believe a word means a given thing, that's what it means, no matter what the scholars say.
              Yeah, you can use the same words to describe each action, and most people will know what the physical act is that you're describing. But, once again, to claim that both actions are physically equivalent, and therefore morally equivalent, is ludicrous.

              You should go back through my journal and find the two articles where I discuss the very fact that language is a consensual phenomenon. I'm sure I understand it as well as you do. The point is, however, that regardless of what words you use, the physical actions are not the same.

              But if you still want to debate the point, consider that the act of deprivation alone is not considered theft. What if I were to send a virus into someone's computer to wipe out all their data, but didn't have access to the data myself? What I have done is deprives the other of the data, but no reasonable person would call that theft. Sabotage perhaps?
              Destruction of property.
              And analgous 'real world' act would be arson. No one I know would consider arson to be theft. That would lead me to believe that the bulk of the meaning lies in the act of acquisition, not in deprivation.
              The act of arson has, at its core, destruction of property, not deprivation of possession. In one sense, they're not even deprived of the property: it's still there, it's just in a different chemical form than it used to be. Theft, however, does not involve the destruction of property, whereas arson (or the virus example) do.

              If theft and copyright infringement are physically the same thing, then why do we have separate bodies of law for them? Shouldn't there be one, single, unified body of law regarding them, since they're apparently identical?

              • Yeah, you can use the same words to describe each action, and most people will know what the physical act is that you're describing. But, once again, to claim that both actions are physically equivalent, and therefore morally equivalent, is ludicrous.

                I'm not making an argument about the physical or moral implications of theft defined as 'acquisition while depriving another', versus just 'acquisition'. I don't believe that they are morally or phyically the same. All I'm saying is that the word theft can be interpreted to mean both things.

                Neither am I saying making any argument about a particular kind of acquisition, and whether it should or shouldn't be allowed. I am not interested in having a discussion about morality versus the law with you, and I begin to think that we're simply talking at cross purposes.

          • What is property? Property is something that has value and can be traded/exchanged. People work in order to obtain property. Artists work to write good songs, and entertainment companies work to market those artists and buy time in recording studios run by top sound engineers who know have built a career learning how to make the music sound great. Those people work to create the property that you so haphazzardly steal. All of these people work at their jobs in order to make money to feed their families and purchase the things that they desire to own that they cannot (or choose not to) produce themselves.

            Work creates property. If you get a job at McDonalds (or elsewhere) and earn $18, you can buy a CD. Your work has been exchanged for the work of the artist, sound engineer, etc.

            Until you find artists, sound engineers, and recording execs who are willing to work for free, then you have no business copying the product of their labor. Doing so violates their right of ownership on that which they have produced.

            Maybe you wouldn't pay $18 for a CD. Just because they won't sell you track 11 for $.50 doesn't mean you have the right to steal it. How they sell it is their choice and does not justify theft.

            Some people mix up the idea of being in favor of something like open-source software with the idea of opposing intellectual property in general. On the contrary, the GPL limits how GPL'ed code may be used and sold: You can't use GPL'ed code as part of a for-sale software product unless you provide the appropriate source code. The feasibility of enforcing the GPL depends on enforcing a notion of property. In the case of the GPL, GPL-licensed code belongs to everyone so long as they follow license requirements. Similarly, for any OTHER piece of intellectual or physical property, the creator deserves to dictate how that property may be used by the purchaser. The GPL is just one example. CDs are another. Can anyone think of others?

  • to admit you are a thief and you won't have to go on self righteous tirades like this.
    • It's always a quandary: Do you respond to obvious trolls like Blackneto? You feel like you want to quash the stupidity, but feeding the trolls can be even more dangerous than letting stupidity run rampant... I guess the best solution is non-responses like this, that let you mock stupid people without feeling bad. :)
      • No it's not a troll.
        I honestly believe copying material you don't have the legal rights to is theft.
        If the copyright owner wants to persue the matter in court you wont have a legal leg to stand on.
        Now, do I do it? yes. But I'm honest enough not to delude myself into thinking it's anything other than what it is. And that is copyright infringement which is equal to theft.
        • I honestly believe copying material you don't have the legal rights to is theft.
          If it's theft, then why do we have the term "copyright infringement", and a completely separate body of law for handling copying instead of physical deprivation (i.e. larceny)? Maybe you meant that it's morally equivalent to theft, but it's neither linguistically nor legally equivalent.
          If the copyright owner wants to persue the matter in court you wont have a legal leg to stand on.
          When did I ever say that copyright infringement isn't illegal? I didn't. That's because I frickin' know it's illegal. We're not talking about whether it's illegal, we're talking about whether it's physically equivalent to theft.
          Now, do I do it? yes. But I'm honest enough not to delude myself into thinking it's anything other than what it is. And that is copyright infringement which is equal to theft.
          Once again, it's equal neither in law nor in language.
  • I think your point here is that copying is not literally theft (feel free to correct me). If that is the case, then you are right. The creator of the information hold a copyright, which, I believe, is just that... the right to make copies of that information. Assuming my interpretation of the term is correct, then a person who copies information that you have a copyright on is not stealing from you, they are instead depriving you of the exclusivity (if that's even a word) of your right to make a copy.

    Is that literally theft? I'd say no. The question is, what does the law say in your jurisdiction?
    • I agree entirely with your first paragraph. :)

      The real question is, what should the law say?
      • Looking over your whole argument, I can agree that the law on the matter is rather silly.
        Penalties for Copyright infringement are usually punative with no jail time. While with burglery or robbery you will be sent to jail.
        All these terms are considered theft. They are just different degrees of the same term. Or perhaps they are all synonyms of the same thing. It's early and brain and hands aren't really syncing yet.
        Good luck in getting it changed though. I'm sure the people that want to keep it the way it is have more money, lawyers and time than you do.

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