! PSA: Watch your torrenting !

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There is no THEFT in the act of piracy. Nothing physical or electronic, if you look at it that way, is stolen.

The only thing that's not being granted is potential revenue. Revenue isn't stolen. No one got the money nor did anyone steal anyone's money.
There is only the corporate ideology that "Well, now they didn't pay for my movie/software." but who would know they would have paid up front to use it the first time anyway?
That's why it can't be labeled as stealing. Therefore why it's called Piracy.


It is no different than taking your favorite CD and making a copy of it for a friend. No one stole anything.
 
TXgolfer said:
Identity Theft???? Still have your identity....just someone is using it illegally "reproducing" Birth certificates,Driver Licenses and SS cards.

Theft of Service??? You still have everything.......someone just used your service without paying you. It's considered theft of service (also trespassing) if you walk onto a golf course and play without paying. Or if you hire a lawyer and don't pay.

Nothing material has to be lost for it to be considered theft.

If the game/program/show was created/produced for profit and you use it without permission (illegally) it is theft. Maybe it's a theft called Piracy.....but it is still theft.
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good luck! courts are still not satisfied with that interpretation. It doesn't fit. People can be convicted of Copyright Law violation only if they copy and sell it. But in this case - there is no profit involved.

oh btw - Copyright Law is a federal matter.
 
Wirelessly posted

Right, most acts of piracy still require someone to purchase the goods before copying it.

So, identity theft and theft of service doesn't fit.
 
Piracy avoids paying for the actual product in question. You don't pay, then that's theft. Money or profit that would have been due to the company or person's work. It's a civil form of theft. It is also potentially ruins jobs for a company because of lost of potential profits that would have otherwise helped sustain or grow a company. Taking away from somebody that's rightfully theirs without paying is simply theft.
 
Wow this thread went far. I would have no problem paying for music or movies to download, but not at the prices they are currently at. Look at how much an album cost on itunes compared to the cost of the same cd. Hell I have seen CDs at Best Buy cheaper than a download on itunes of the same CD:crazy:
 
Oh, they still got their $30. Just that $30 gets divided everytime that copied material gets distributed. One disc, one pirated file-- $15 per copy; one disc, two pirated files-- $10; one disc, three pirated files-- $7.50 per copy and so on. So they still have their profits; the potential profit is just being undercutting the creators' rights to livelihood. That's why piracy falls under "copyrights infringement," not "theft."

Can't really compare it to sharing amusement park admissions either, because it's really two people forcing staff to work overtime to support an unauthorized costumer.
 
kokonut said:
Piracy avoids paying for the actual product in question. You don't pay, then that's theft. Money or profit that would have been due to the company or person's work. It's a civil form of theft. It is also potentially ruins jobs for a company because of lost of potential profits that would have otherwise helped sustain or grow a company. Taking away from somebody that's rightfully theirs without paying is simply theft.
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Piracy is piracy. Theft is theft.

Try to distinguish the two.

Piracy is a crime. Theft is a crime. However, both are not the same concept.
 
souggy said:
Oh, they still got their $30. Just that $30 gets divided everytime that copied material gets distributed. One disc, one pirated file-- $15 per copy; one disc, two pirated files-- $10; one disc, three pirated files-- $7.50 per copy and so on. So they still have their profits; the potential profit is just being undercutting the creators' rights to livelihood. That's why piracy falls under "copyrights violation," not "theft."
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Aye aye.
 
Banjo said:
Piracy is piracy. Theft is theft.

Try to distinguish the two.

Piracy is a crime. Theft is a crime. However, both are not the same concept.
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exactly.

when it comes to killing a human being... murder and manslaughter are 2 different concepts.
 
kokonut said:
Piracy avoids paying for the actual product in question. You don't pay, then that's theft. Money or profit that would have been due to the company or person's work. It's a civil form of theft. It is also potentially ruins jobs for a company because of lost of potential profits that would have otherwise helped sustain or grow a company. Taking away from somebody that's rightfully theirs without paying is simply theft.
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just for the sake of argument - do you have any legal cases with legal interpretation that support your statement?
 
Yeah.. quit trying to rationalize it with a prospective businessowner's perspective. It just doesn't work that way.
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If piracy was indeed theft, Microsoft would be completely bankrupt due to the Office line that keeps them alive in the business development sector.

You need to understand and see is exactly being pirated and where is the money coming from. Case in point from Microsoft's earnings by department:
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kokonut said:
Piracy avoids paying for the actual product in question. You don't pay, then that's theft. Money or profit that would have been due to the company or person's work. It's a civil form of theft. It is also potentially ruins jobs for a company because of lost of potential profits that would have otherwise helped sustain or grow a company. Taking away from somebody that's rightfully theirs without paying is simply theft.
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I agree with some members about privacy isn't theft, period.
 
NET Act
From Wikipedia

The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement, even when there is no monetary profit or commercial benefit from the infringement. Maximum penalties can be five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. The NET Act also raised statutory damages by 50%.

Prior to the enactment of the NET Act in 1997, copyright infringement for a non-commercial purpose was apparently not punishable by criminal prosecution, although non-commercial infringers could be sued in a civil action by the copyright holder to recover damages. At that time, criminal prosecutions under the copyright act were possible only when the infringer derived a commercial benefit from his or her actions. This state of affairs was underscored by the unsuccessful 1994 prosecution of David LaMacchia, then a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for allegedly facilitating massive copyright infringement as a hobby, without any commercial motive. The court's dismissal of United States v. LaMacchia suggested that then-existing criminal law simply did not apply to non-commercial infringements (a state of affairs which became known as the "LaMacchia Loophole"). The court suggested that Congress could act to make some non-commercial infringements a crime, and Congress acted on that suggestion in the NET Act.

The NET Act amends the definition of "commercial advantage or private financial gain" to include the exchange of copies of copyrighted works even if no money changes hands and specifies penalties of up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. It also creates a threshold for criminal liability even where the infringer neither obtained nor expected to obtain anything of value for the infringement.
 
You're going for specific details now.

That act is way old and written for a situation in the past, before filesharing was popular.

I believe it was addressing the case of uploading files directly to a site (IE http warez) and letting the public domain download it freely without the intent of "p2p".
p2p just barely existed in 1997, in internet years that's a long time.
Nowadays no site lets you directly download pirated software unless the server is outside of the US or other countries that don't care for internet piracy. Because if you do that and are hosting on USA grounds, they immediately find your domain registration info and the next day the Internet police feds are at your door.

I don't think even direct connect or even Kazaa existed back then, it mostly begain with the most popular was Napster and that started in '99.

I was on back then (started the internet in earlier 90's) and it's not the same as it was today. People used IRC, chat clients capable of file sending and of course the obvious warez on
 
But.....it does call piracy.....even non commercial and with no monetary value......theft.
 
TXgolfer said:
But.....it does call piracy.....even non commercial and with no monetary value......theft.
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so do you have any legal cases where MPAA/RIAA used Net ACT as their legal backing?
 
It's 13 years old, right around the time internet "exploded" via www means.
Names can get rewritten for technicality.
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and I'm wondering - total of how many successful prosecutions under NET Act for p2p piracy? :dunno:
 
That thing was way old man.. Probably not much back then other than those warez sites hype. Didn't pay attention to it too much, and it didn't seem to make too much news.

Definitely not as much as today, I'm 100% sure on that.
 
Jiro said:
so do you have any legal cases where MPAA/RIAA used Net ACT as their legal backing?
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I don't need them....The law says copyright infringement is theft..... P2P piracy is copyright infringement. a-b, b=c yada yada yada. The law may need to be modernized but it is still a fact. Piracy is theft......That was even a slogan for a while.

Piracy is immoral and illegal whether you anyone admits it is theft of not and the people who do it are scum.
 
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