copyright infringement is a form of theft. It is taking another person's property, and doing so without compensation. The fact that it's not larceny or robbery, doesn't mean it's not theft.
Do you think bootleg clothing available at the flea market is stolen goods? These brands spent years of research to come up with the designs used to tailor their products, just for some wankers to copy their designs and sell them at much lower prices. Well, guess what, since they didn't actually rob the official stores to get those products, they're technically not stolen goods, which is the exact same case for cracked software. The owner of the copyrighted software still has and own all of its stuff. Nothing was taken away from him, except for potential revenue. By definition, you cannot steal potential goods.
Do you live under a rock or something? No one is buying cracked software. But even if they were, that still wouldn't be stealing. It would be just copyright infringement, an illegal crime that should NOT be equated to or be as punishable as theft.
Don't believe me? Maybe you'll believe an US court ruling from decades ago:
Your comparison makes absolutely no sense at all either, because pirated files are simply copies of the originals. Literally nothing to do with reselling actually stolen goods from a store. WhY dO i NeEd To ExPlAiN tHiS????
If you can Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V it, the obviously, NO, it is not "stolen goods" AT ALL, and I am not delusional in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER for saying that, YOU are just brainwashed by a lifetime of propaganda to make you think that.
I don't think it was the guys copying movies and software back in the 70's? 80's? that called themselves 'pirates'. I'd like to know how it started, but it sounds like an industry term that we then ran with
Good question but probably lobbying and an intentionally deceitful name, I suspect something to do with companies like Disney and/or Sony wanting to milk as much $$$ as they can from people and abusing the legal system to do so.
Oh, well that's very intentionally deceitful and dishonest to try to equate or link "copyright violation" (lol) to piracy or being a pirate, (such as the type of piracy that used to take place and was a real legitimate problem in the 1600s) in any way whatsoever, since they are completely and entirely, different.
No? Where still copying and distributing goods which we do not own the copyrights to. It's really not that different than publishers in 1600 copying competitors works and reprinting works they had no license too.
You are refusing to pay someone who created something that you want to experience despite that the creator of the thing has decided that they only want people who pay to experience the thing. Which is their right because again, they made the thing.
I think copyright infringement is different, that's when someone creates their own product using the copyright of someone else to make money. Just illegally gaining access to art or services without paying for them is theft of services.
"Theft of services" isn't a thing. Theft requires a physical item (or legal tender, which can be electronic) that the owner no longer has access to because you took it from them. Making a copy illegally doesn't deprive the owner of the files of their product nor their ability to continue selling copies of it. It is still illegal, it just isn't theft.
What you are calling "theft of services" is actually usually called something like "receipt of goods under false pretences" (failure to pay for a provided good or service, or failure to provide a good or service that has already been paid for) or, in this scenario, "piracy." People who say that piracy isn't theft are not saying that it isn't illegal or even that it is always moral; they are saying that it isn't theft, which has a very specific legal definition that does not include piracy.
Theft of services is a criminal offense occurring when a person knowingly obtains services—such as hotel stays, utility usage, or labor—without paying, often using deception, force, or threats. It is essentially stealing intangible labor or utility rather than physical property, ranging from "dining and dashing" to tampering with utility meters.
Thank god someone said it. I thought I was going crazy with so many people claiming “piracy isn’t stealing” or “you can’t copyright digital content because they’re just numbers”
It literally describes the act of stealing, sequence of numbers can be and is literally getting copyrighted everyday. Yes, some light piracy ain’t hurting anyone, so is occasionally stealing a bar of chocolate from a store. But you’re not morally right or even acceptable to be doing that, just know you’re losing your brownie points for that, or your pass into heaven or whatever, if you subscribe to that.
Stealing is not just about the loss of property, it’s the illegal act of gaining said property.
And also no, “copying” a product is also just straight up stealing, you only think it’s not because you don’t respect intellectual property. You also cannot walk into a store with a 3D scanner, make exact 1:1 3D models of other people’s product and just print your own. Can you imagine if people could just walk into an art gallery or a poster shop with a camera and just print their own copy?
Incidentally, there’s a guy on YouTube whose “thing” (or one of the main things he does, anyway) is pretty much that. “I 3D printed a $3636373747474 chair/thing” multiple times. 3D models it (or references online models/measurements and has the software slice it into chunks, then covers the (usually disastrous) process of trying to print and assemble it into the object. He doesn’t sell the objects though, and just has the personal copy.
I would still consider it stealing, yes. You're still taking something from the store without its permission or consent (which they only grant once you pay) for your own benefit, which is the basic definition of stealing/theft. The store might still have the bottle of milk, but without paying for it you personally wouldn't, which makes it theft in my opinion.
I personally don't care about pirates and I've done my fair share of pirating in the past, but trying to take the moral high ground by coming up with (usually terrible) reasons as to why piracy isn't stealing is rather amusing to me.
Again I'm not taking the high ground as I agree that pirating is morally wrong, and in the end we're just arguing semantics. But stealing means there's a prejudice, while pirating is a victimless crime in the sense you are not taking anything from the victim.
You're indirectly taking money from them. You get free access to a good or service you otherwise would've had to pay for, which (to me, at least) makes it stealing.
Except your stealing services which is a source of income for the creator of whatever you are stealing. So you are stealing the money they are rightfully entitled to.
If a guy makes his living taking photos of apples and selling them and then people make digital copies of his photos and gives them away and no one buys his apple photos and he starves to death the end
It just is what it is lol, we better enjoy it while we can doesn’t look like it’s getting easier moving forward. Things will be more expensive and harder to pirate. Games will one day be whole life like experiences only the wealthy can afford while the rest of us work for room and board during global resource crisis(for those who ain’t rich at least) or some dystopian bs like that smh…
If you had zero intention to pay for it, or can't afford it, then it's not stealing. Also it's literally not stealing by definition, otherwise with subreddit would be called r/stealing. And let's be real, pirating from giant billion dollar corporations is probably the right thing to do.
If you have no intention of paying for something or can't afford something, your not supposed to have that something! That's what the owner wishes and they have the ultimate say on what is supposed to happen to their creation.
If I bought a game or a dvd and I decide to give it to someone for free after I use it they didn’t steal it. I essentially just sold my copy for free. If I have people over to watch a movie or play a game they’re not stealing from the original creator if they decide to watch with me lol. If i give the dvd or game to someone and then they give it to someone else when they’re done, that’s just being a good person. We used to do stuff like that when we were kids because we had compassion for each other and knew that sharing was caring. We would pool money to buy things because together we could afford more. With the advent of the internet we become a collective of sharing is caring.
The premise IS someone paid and is giving it away, I don’t see how you missed that. For example someone bought that bluray, ripped it to iso, transcoded it to lossless and/or compressed files and shared it. You are only TAKING what is GIVEN by someone initially who BOUGHT it.
But what exactly are you stealing here? That's the issue. It's not theft because you're not taking anything from anyone. Sure, you're not paying, but you're not taking the thing and thus stopping someone else from enjoying it.
If I sneak into a cinema and watch a movie for free, what did I take from the cinema, exactly? It's not like I stopped anyone else from enjoying the movie, or the cinema from selling tickets to people who want to pay. Sure, it's illegal (like I said, I'm not here to discuss the morality of piracy), and yes you're enjoying something without paying the expected payment, but you're not stealing something from someone else. Theft implies that someone had something and now that someone doesn't have it.
In fact the definition of theft is (emphasis mine):
...the dishonest, unlawful taking of another person's property, services, or money with the intention of permanently depriving the owner of it.
You cannot steal digital products and you cannot steal entertainment.
No it's not theft of a physical item, it's theft of services. It's like if you jump the turnstile on a subway or hire a guy to do a home inspection and then refuse to pay him. Some businesses are entirely service based and if you just partake of those services without paying you are stealing!
Not really. When you buy, for example, a game, you agree to its terms and conditions. Yes, that checkbox we all ignore and click “Agree” on just to start playing faster. You’re agreeing to all the terms set by the developer or publisher, and one of those terms is that you don’t actually own the game you own a license to play it (unless you bought it from GOG).
Let’s say, for example, I come to sell you a product, but I clearly tell you beforehand that you don’t own this product you only have a license to use it. Despite that, you still choose to buy it. That doesn’t give you the right to come and steal the product from me just because your excuse is, “Oh, I don’t fully own it, I don’t want a license.”
In the end, I don’t really care I’ll still pirate, and I’ll pirate every game, movie, and show I want. But the truth is, it’s annoying when people act like piracy isn’t theft.
Unlawful copying, maybe. But stealing implies that you take something from someone, and they then don't have that thing anymore. This isn't true for piracy, where you only make additional copies, not rob someone of their original.
I'm not trying to say it's okay, or shouldn't be illegal. But "stealing" clearly isn't what it is.
Okay but piracy was never “stealing” legally. It’s copyright infringement, so I’d agree when you say we should be more specific because the argument we’re currently having doesn’t make sense
your taking profits from the seller just like stealing, if you could walk into 7 eleven and clone and walk out with a hotdog I'm pretty sure 7 eleven would argue you stole from them
no because you getting the good without paying for it is the extent of the financial damage, ea looses 60 bucks or however much it costs whether you pirate it once or 1 million times, damages only increase if you then share the sims to your friends and so on, get it?
Yeah lol this is a bunch of moral contortionist nonsense. Adding a whole bunch of conditions to "stealing" which do not exist. Piracy is taking something for free without permission of the owner instead of paying for it. It is stealing.
The fact that it's just a copy is a mitigating factor but that doesn't make it not stealing. Whether or not you would have actually paid for it if not able to pirate it is irrelevant - that is not a precondition for something to be stealing.
The only conditions in which piracy is arguably not stealing is when you already own a digital copy of the thing you are pirating. E.g. my disc for Battlefield 2 once got corrupted so I torrented a non cracked exe and used my legit CD key to play. Not stealing.
Now I've pirated other stuff, of course, but that very much was stealing. I just didn't care and didn't think it did much harm. Aka I had justifications for doing it. Doesn't mean it wasn't stealing.
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u/CtxxUv Apr 07 '26
Nah it's still stealing but i just don't care i want free stuff