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Debunking piracy justifications

8 points by drewse ↗ HN
I though it'd be cool for people to list some common phrases or excuses that supporters of piracy often use to justify their actions. Then others could comment below them with arguments against the flawed piracy justifications.

- Example Format -

Justification: Piracy is not theft because...

Rebuttal: Piracy is theft because...

25 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 67.8 ms ] thread
TamDenholm
I used to be a huge pirate when i was younger.

I used to pirate software, including windows. I dont anymore, i use Linux now. I used to pirate music, i dont anymore, i pay for spotify, i even deleted my gigs of MP3's. I used to pirate games, i dont anymore, i rent them from lovefilm instead. (UK version of Netflix) Same goes for movies.

I still download TV shows, but i dont really view that as piracy anymore since i can get all the shows via BBC iPlayer, 4OD, Youtube TV Show section etc. (UK versions of Hulu).

To me, piracy was just the phase of the internet dragging the old media industry kicking and screaming into the new era. Sure it still goes on, but piracy forced innovation in my eyes, which on the whole, i consider a good thing.

marv_in
I think this is a good subject but unfortunately I think there's probably going to be less substance in the rebuttal side.

I'm not pro-piracy but I think at the heart of piracy is the moral after-effect of corporations being able to produce too much demand.

It's like society's evolution towards more and more corporations creating apathetic but constantly product feeding consumers. At some point the adaptation process leans towards these individuals favoring a form of acquiring anything at a cheaper (preferably) free price because the opposite side of the spectrum - that of being thrifty, pragmatic, conservative...loses it's efficiency over time regardless if many still view themselves as conservative buyers.

One may make the counter-argument that this is over-thinking an age old practice of software piracy but in my honest opinion there's a huge difference between underground software "crack" sharing from wholesale piracy to mass consumer p2p usage.

Nonetheless just to support your topic:

Justification: Piracy helps promote businesses via consumer awareness

Rebuttal: Piracy helps promote BIG businesses. If piracy supporting people were truly for helping businesses, they would be a lot more intelligent in seeding certain products.

Instead the most seeded ones are often times also those that are mainstream. This doesn't mean the technology hasn't allowed for those who would seed or allow for a less costlier promotion of an item but... until piracy develops a seeder mentality rather than a leeching one, this justification won't ever reach reality. (and by seeder mentality, I don't mean just those who have the capability to possess seedboxes or seed 1:1 - I mean we have to have a conscious identity as consumers even if we're acquiring something that is cash free because it's not votefree. There are certain books or products that could help alleviate third world countries and then there are products that are merely entertainment junkfoods)

MoreMoschops
Piracy drives innovation and better ways of delivering content to customers.

I want to pay a fair price to watch a single episode of something once, at my convenience. I do not want to buy an overpriced DVD boxed set that I will watch one episode from and then have it taking up space on my shelves, knowing I'll never use it but struggling to throw it away because I paid so much for it.

It is now possible for me to pay a reasonable price online to watch a single episode of something, so I do. I get what I want, the vendor gets some money where before they would have got nothing from me. Everyone wins.

I honestly believe that if the studios had things exactly their way, I'd have to pay a fortune for something I didn't really want. They've been forced into this by having to compete with piracy.

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nodata
Off topic, but I'd like the price of, say, TV shows, to match the price that the current buyers (the advertisers) currently pay.

A buck an episode is a fair few bucks per season. The advertisers are paying pennies.

rlpb
There are relatively few advertisers, so the cost per transaction is low. What is the cost of the administrative overhead of selling TV shows directly? For example, there's customer service, marketing and infrastructure.
Xuzz
I'm an app developer and I'm sure that over half of my users are pirates. I think this is a good thing. It helps me improve my productions, as I talk to the pirates and fix the bugs they find. It helps my product get out there: pirates show off their new app, and those they show it to buy it.

I believe (although, with no stats to back this up) that working /with/ pirates is better than against them.

drewse
I'm also an app developer, but have very few (if any) pirates using my games. However, I agree that if a large group of pirates downloaded your app, it would be worthwhile to take advantage of that increased user base (even if they're not customers). The problem occurs when the negative impact from the people who pirate your app (but otherwise would have bought it) surpasses the positive impact that the pirates make on your app (e.g. suggestions, more publicity, etc.) I'm pretty sure that there is a point where the negative impacts surpass the positive impacts.
whatever_dude
Piracy is not theft because there's no subtraction of goods.

This is not a justification, just logic.

reason
Would you consider the distribution of a secret recipe, obtained via unauthorized means, as theft, given the potential blow to the business of a restaurant famously known for said recipe?
Fargren
Theft is the substraction of goods. What you describe may be criminal behaviour, but it's not theft, the same way it's not breaking and entering.
fauigerzigerk
But in this case something is clearly subtracted, unlike in the case of piracy. Yet I'm not sure if industrial espionage is usually treated as theft.
mooism2
The secret is subtracted, but is not taken by someone else, unlike with theft. Instead it is destroyed. If you want to equate it to a physical crime, vandalism or criminal damage would seem to be a better fit.
fauigerzigerk
Yes, if the information is simply published vandalism or sabotage would be a fitting category. But if it is sold to a third party it is more similar to theft. In any event, it's probably much more useful to have a separate legal concept for "piracy" that does justice to the specifics of digital goods and the way they are used.
jamesbritt
"given the potential blow to the business of a restaurant famously known for said recipe?"

What difference should that make to whether it is theft or not?

Presenting the matter in terms of a trade secret, instead of bits that are otherwise legitimately available (albeit for a price) is an interesting twist (regardless of whatever financial impact it may have).

I still don't see it as "taking something away from someone else" theft, but (for reasons I haven't quite sorted out) it does seem different from making the latest released Kid Rock opus available on MediaFire.

Maybe it's the privacy aspect. If someone obtains my or your private medical records and posts them on Wikileaks I'd say it was immoral. Whether or not it's technically theft would not be the issue; it would be just as bad if my own doctor decided to do it.

mumble
With software and music media etc. you don't buy the physical good (the CD, DVD etc. which you seem to be talking about) but the right to use it, listen to it etc. One could argue though that this mode of thinking is inherently broken because you usually don't get the right to use it, listen to it etc. under any condition but only with the right software/hardware equipment. And since you're usually not allowed to make copies or to transfer it to another system, the correct use of the good equates the good anyway.
corysama
Piracy is not theft because you didn't lose anything and I wasn't going to buy it anyway.

Piracy is still theft because you are freely taking value from something that I'm not willing to give. Maybe a better analogy is invasion of privacy... I don't think pirates would be as proud if they were referred to as "software peeping-toms".

Piracy is not theft because buying your product is more hassle than it's worth to me. Besides, I'm giving you free advertising by sharing your product with my friends.

Piracy is still theft because how poorly I price, distribute and market my product are my mistakes to make. When you make these decisions for me, you are putting my livelihood at risk. That's my job, not yours.

These issues are much softer than material theft, but they are still issues. I don't condemn pirates. I just regret how much harder it is to make good products because of piracy. For every 1000 pirates claiming to be helping developers against their will, there is another small developer that telling stories of how much their sales increase for a few weeks each time they update their anti-piracy measures.

hyperluz
Piracy is not theft because, who pirates and don't have money to buy software, is not affecting the sofware developer's finances negatively. Who pirates is even helping to disseminate and to popularize such pirated products.

Piracy is theft because, on the capitalist system there are implicit and explicit rules that imply on exchange of products and services, being money the document that proves the provision of such services and products. If someone wants a product (software in this case) of complex and hard work, then this person have, before anything, work to obtain proves (money) that the society received due contribution.

fauigerzigerk
In a legal sense piracy is theft if the law in a particular jurisdiction defines it as such. My personal opinion is that it is not useful to talk of theft when the owner of a good can still use or sell that good after it was stolen.
hxa7241
No, it would not be 'cool', in any sense. It is not engaging with the matter in an intelligent way.

There is a problem here, but it is not 'piracy'. It is that the laws, and consequent ways of doing business, don't work properly when everyone has the ability to copy any information.

IP laws are there to serve the public overall. That they increase revenue for creators is not the end, only the means. The end is to support a level of production that the public would want. The laws do not represent any deeper moral principle -- quite the opposite: we want information to be accessible, and widely communicated. IP, at the essence of its definition, is a compromise of two conflicting aims. It is evaluated purely pragmatically: that the overall good done is hoped better than the harm.

But the circumstances have changed greatly. Significant enforcement is now neither practical nor desirable. The internet gives everyone the means to share information; why should these laws obstruct the public from realising this new benefit? The laws are supposed to serve the public after all.

Ultimately our laws and commercial arrangements must do two things: express our moral principles, and be effective and practical. The moral aims are that we should support and improve both sharing and production -- these are not really antagonistic as IP pretends, they are mutually reinforcing. And we need to achieve that accounting for real, current, and likely future circumstances.

Simply saying 'Piracy is theft' is going backwards not forwards.

If 'piracy' forces everyone to pay attention and do something to change things, it is doing some good. IP is effectively a monopoly, that large corporations have repeatedly ramped up for their own benefit, despite whatever detriment to anyone else. Do you really believe they would loosen that grip voluntarily?

mumble
Justification: Piracy is not theft because most of the profits doesn't go to the creator/artist/developer but to corporate management/share holders who cannibalize their zoo of creator/artist/developer they keep in the backyard. Only very few members of their creator/artist/developer zoo become stars and get some publicity in order to keep customers believe in the system that they pay honor the creativity of the creators. The truth is though that there are plenty of creative people around who can do well without the corporate PR machinery.
mumble
Rebuttal: Piracy is theft because pirates violate the conditions under which artists/developers made their work available to the public. If they don't like those conditions, they shouldn't be using it but create their own stuff. (Please note, I explicitly exclude software patents or similar constructs whose only raison d'être is to keep competitors from making their own stuff.)
iwr
Copying is not theft because there are no such things as property rights in the value of things. Value is the valuation of others, it exists in the minds of other people. You do not have a property right to the value of your house, for instance, in the sense that you can't have a right to how other people think (or how other people evaluate).

Creating copyable things does take work and it is the right of a creator to be able to sell it. It would also be his right to sign a contract with his customer not to copy the work. DRM, watermarks, SaaS are all good tools to reduce unauthorized copying.

With that said, even if you disagree about copyrights, can we not call it a property right?