LordZ said:
My apologies if I forget that common knowledge or just plain simple logic requires a Harvard study to be believable to someone like you. (Example: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100179-Strong-Morals-Make-Strong-Bodies)
If you go by the route that it is illegal because the law says it is, sure, I'm not arguing this. However, if copying is theft why did they have to title it copyright infringement instead of just copyright theft?
Because you can infringe on a copyright without actually stealing the intellectual property. It's a difference in damages, severity, and intent. Infringement can be unintentional, usually non-damaging, and not too serious. Theft is blatant "I wanted to make this drug, too, so I took the formula, made the drug, and sold it". To put it another way: theft includes infringement, infringement doesn't include theft. Assault with a deadly weapon includes aggravated assault.
LordZ said:
In case you have some delusions about what infringement means:
1 : the act of infringing : violation
2 : an encroachment or trespass on a right or privilege http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infringement
Again, if you feel this definition is inadequate, feel free to provide your own. I feel this makes my point about it not being "theft" though I reiterate that I never claimed it wasn't illegal. There's a lot of stuff that's illegal that shouldn't be.
The argument we're having (or should be having) is over whether it should be illegal. Everything else is at least somewhat off topic. I believe that the misappropriation of creative works without compensation to the creator is simply wrong. Do you disagree?
LordZ said:
You're arguing semantics and you were the one who claimed it was a theft of labor in your original post. If you weren't interested in that line of logic(as fallacious as it is), I have to wonder why you even brought it up.
That was a mistake on my part. Mea culpa. I went down the specific path of discussing whether it counts as theft, when our argument has always been about whether it (a) is wrong, and (b) should be illegal.
LordZ said:
]Anyone can come up with the same thought or idea as anyone else. Being the first to copyright the idea may give you a legal right to it as "property" but just because there is a law for it doesn't mean it is correct. You're basically saying that thoughts and ideas are property simply because the law makes it so.
It's your property because you made it. If I develop a certain model of car, another company steals the blueprints, and makes the same exact car, selling it as a competitor to my work, it's simply wrong. I did the work to make the model, I should reap the rewards.
LordZ said:
I agree that it is ethically wrong to try to profit (regardless of success) from another person's creative work. I find it equally wrong to punish someone for doing so. Just because something is immoral does not mean it should be a crime. Honestly, I think the entire legal system needs reworking. Prison really isn't even effective. A person does something wrong so we give them an inordinately long time out for it? Is this really how we should be handling things? It would be less cruel to just execute anyone who would normally have to go to prison. Do not misunderstand, I'm not saying it's a good solution to go around executing people for every crime they commit. I'm saying it's a better solution than the current one, as a way to point out how terrible the current solution is.
Well, there are varying sentences, and I agree we should tailor things a bit more specifically, but...
LordZ said:
I can't find the quote I was looking for about arbitrary laws. However, Mr. Fair Use has a lot to say about your suggestion that copying from TV to VCR is illegal. http://w2.eff.org/IP/DRM/fair_use_and_drm.html
I should have been more direct. I meant to say that copying a VCR of a television show and distributing it in a competitive way with the actual product would be illegal. Given that piracy is by definition in competition with the original product, I thought the analogy would be more clear
LordZ said:
Sure, law defines absolutely what is right and wrong. How dare anyone question the ethics of a law. I'm sure that comes as great relief to the victims of the holocaust.
Godwin's Law. But, you're going back and forth. First you argue it isn't stealing under the law, and intellectual property doesn't exist. I assumed you meant that you believed IP didn't exist under the law. I didn't realize we were discussing grand morality. I still think you're wrong, but we're on the same page.
LordZ said:
You say that as if there's a difference between copying and copying. By the way, you clearly don't pay attention to most of the anti-piracy propaganda because many of them explicitly say that copying is piracy. Many of the publishers would be all too happy to make all forms of imitation (regardless of whether it is intentional or not) illegal.
Boy, talk about guilt by association. And few courts I've ever seen would consider an unintentional and completely coincidental similarity between products to be actionable. But, you've not responded to my point. Some copying is legal, some is illegal. Some drugs are legal, some are illegal. Some driving is legal, some is illegal. Some guns are legal, some are illegal. What's the difference I'm not seeing?
LordZ said:
you really are a fan of apples to oranges hyperbole. I crafted my previous nazi hyperbole just for you.
It's not hyperbole to state that your implication that piracy should simply be considered "copying", as a way to try to frame the debate in the way most favorable to your beliefs is just as erroneous as stating that heroin use is just "using drugs", and (by implication) since we accept the use of asprin, we should accept heroin.
There's a distinction between legal copying and illegal copying. See above.
LordZ said:
Tell me, would you think it is still theft (or even infringement) if the two competing companies with the exact same product created their products independently? It amuses me to no end that you continue to call infringement as theft when the law itself doesn't even define it as such.
If such true independence can be shown, most courts would throw out the action. There have been a lot of cases about that. But, infringement is a different beast altogether from the theft of intellectual property. The fact that you can't comprehend that distinction (under the law) doesn't really amuse me much.
LordZ said:
If both you and I farmed apples and oranges but I grew my apples and oranges from the seeds you sold me, would you call that theft? After all, I could grow identical apples and oranges to yours since I got my seeds from you. We could take this a step further and say I wasn't growing them but cloning them. Is it theft now? How is this functionally any different than copying data?
Because you're profiting on your own work, not on mine. I sold you the seeds, relinquishing my right to those seeds. You then inputted labor and resources into creating a legitimate derivative product. You weren't taking my apples, relabeling them, and giving them away. You made your own apples based on the seeds I had provided. Perhaps (perhaps) if someone decided to make a derivative game from AC2, with different features, different storylines, and new characters, I would accept them using some basic code and intellectual property from the first game.
Amazingly, the courts already allow that sort of thing. I can use elements from a song, to remix, or re-record, or parody, or whatever. The question the courts ask is whether I put my own creativity and labor into it.
You made your own damned apples. Pirates aren't making their own game.
