Do you often pirate things on a computer?

[Millennium]

Cypher1980 said:

Millennium said:

Cypher1980 said:

Millennium said:
I used to, many moons ago. Then I came to my senses and stopped stealing. I've since either destroyed anything I pirated or sought out legit copies, and while I'm not finished with that second task yet (there's a lot of work to do, and some of them have gotten very hard to find) I'd like to think that I've made good progress.

Pirating digitally is stealing ?

Yes, yes it is.

The way that copyright fundamentally works is that any copy made of a work belongs, initially, to the rightsholder. They can do whatever they want with it -license it out, sell it, destroy it, or whatever- but it is theirs. If you make a copy and do not have some sort of arrangement with them or some other legitimate right (i.e. backup, installation, time-shifting, compatibility, or the handful of other very specific acts collectively known as "fair use"), then you must render it up to them immediately, or else you have stolen that copy.

Piracy is theft, plain and simple. "Making a copy" does not prevent this; in fact, that copy what makes it theft in the first place. Pirates are nothing more than common thieves.

I had no idea it was so serious. But if so why not just convict the pirates for theft in the courts. Its a much more serious offence than copyright infringement.

The message would then be loud and clear that piracy is a serious crime.

Perhaps they should, then. I do think that the balance of copyright is currently skewed more toward producers than it ought to be, to the point where I believe that DRM in any form should be illegal as an infringement on the rights of legitimate users. But there is still a difference between legitimate use and theft.

The works of RMS, who I'm sure a lot of the thieves here have read and taken as "inspiration"- are not a justification for piracy. They never once argue that software should not be sold. If anything, they argue for IP to mimic physical property much more closely than it currently does, with copies rather than licenses being the product for sale. Revisionist interpretations completely miss the point of what he was trying to say, and represent a serious twisting of his words for the sake of LOL I GET GAEMS 4 FREE FIGHT THE POWAH. It's reprehensible.