I hate to intrude on your conversation, but you're most definitely wrong. All that has to happen it be qualified as theft is that you 'intentionally deprive without colour of right,' the original owner from the legal ownership of the subject in question. This definitely fits into that definition quite easily, and it's not even moderately a stretch.
Given your spelling of "colour" and the odd sounding law, I can only assume you are from the UK. Maybe your laws define copying as "theft" despite the obvious tie to all prior definitions of the past several thousand years but here in the US it's a "violation of copyright law" and if the media in question is old enough, it's not even that (i.e. you can do anything you damn well please with public domain material here). Legally, speaking, the courts in the USA make the distinction as well (
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Copyright_infringement#.22Theft.22 -- Full University reference Clough, Jonathan (2010).
Principles of Cybercrime. Cambridge University Press. p. 221.
ISBN 978-0-521-72812-6)
Copyrights expire and become public domain (here at least). Stealing never expires. The courts ruled here there are exceptions to copyrights (fair uses such as time-shifting and quoting for reviews, etc. otherwise I could claim you 'stole' my writing by quoting my message. Perhaps you did in your country?
Copyright laws were originally enacted specifically so owner of said idea (most typically books back then) can profit off their ideas for a fair amount of time before it becomes public domain (as all classical works are, for example). There have been companies lobbying to extend copyrights (Disney did successfully to keep its early cartoon movies from becoming public domain) and many want them to last forever since corporations never die, but this defeats the entire spirit of the law that was meant to only benefit the original holder and perhaps his immediately family, not stockholders for the next several thousand years that had NOTHING to do with its creation. Many believe the type of media and shelf life should be considered as well in the modern age as things like old arcade/video games would disintegrate on their motherboards before their copyrights expired (hence preservation projects like MAME). Stealing physical objects never "expires" and so again, literally equating the two makes no sense except to those that stand to benefit from such things (e.g. Disney).
Most people don't bother drawing technical legal distinctions during everyday discussions.
I hardly find it
technical. To me, it's more akin to the difference between a speeding ticket and causing an accident while driving drunk. Both are illegal but are hardly the same thing. Arguments for losses via copyrights are always predicated on the idea that said person
would have bought said item if they couldn't have copied it. This is obviously not true as people will watch/listen to things they can get for free (e.g. network TV) that they would never buy in a million years (e.g. Dancing with the stars). Perhaps in your backwards country they are the same thing, but then we threw all your tea into Boston Harbor for reason.
(yeah that was illegal too yet we celebrate it here quite joyously).
Most people do indeed prefer to simplify things. As in: copyright infringement is either right or wrong,
If what you were saying were true then the punishment for speeding, stealing and murdering would all be the same thing since they're all "wrong".
Honestly, would you send someone to jail for videotaping an episode of the A-Team off broadcast TV the same as someone who stole a television set from a Walmart? Really??? That was legal to do in the U.S. by the way (a
fair use) as ruled by the courts. Oddly, they want to tell us it's not the same with digital as analog despite MP3/AAC being lossy by nature (i.e. it makes no sense logically speaking). What about fast-forwarding through commercials on a DVR device? The program is paid for by advertising. Shouldn't you be FORCED to watch it for that reason? Shouldn't ad blockers on browsers be illegal too for the same reason? In a democracy, how many would agree with that? Where do the people's rights for public domain, government services and entitlement programs begin and capitalism's right to make money end? It's nowhere near as simple as people like you would like it to be since "owning an idea" is a relatively modern and somewhat novel concept at best. You couldn't read, write or wash your hands if you didn't copy that behavior from someone else. Humans copy everything they do by nature. It's called learning. You may think it's an obvious line, but that means you haven't really thought about it. That's why I buy music and movies not because I agree with copyright law, but because I believe in supporting artists. And no I don't feel guilty about skipping endless repetitive insurance commercials on my DVR....
And notice that I fully supported artists getting paid royalties during the free trial period from day one here. Again, that's because I feel artists should be supported (so they keep making art). On the other hand, I don't think they should be able to tell you that you can't make a copy onto a hard drive, USB flash drive or iPod for
personal use. There should always be FAIR USE rules to all copyright laws and that's because there needs to be a balance between the consumer and the merchant in all things. Whirlpool doesn't tell me what I can and cannot do with ice cubes made with their refrigerator I bought nor should they be able to, IMO. As long as I'm not manufacturing "copies" of their fridge and selling those copies, that should be the end of it, comparatively speaking.
No more replies, then, thanks.
