I am 100% down for sailing the high seas. But let’s not sugarcoat it, this analogy is always been kind of crap.
Somebody went to your mailbox took out your paycheck, made a copy of it, put the original back in your box, went to the bank and cashed it.
Theft still took place. You’re probably still getting paid. Maybe it got taken up by insurance and everyone’s premium goes up a tiny fraction, maybe it got taken up by the bank or by your business.
It’s still an incomplete analogy but it’s a little bit closer.
That’s not to say that the vast majority of piracy isn’t people who wouldn’t pay anyway. And back in the day, you certainly got more visibility in your games from people who were pirating.
But now that advertising is on its toes and steam exists, I won’t think they’re getting any serious benefit from piracy and I don’t think that they’re not losing At least modest numbers of sales.
Piracy situation is more like you have made a cool statue and you charge people money for looking at your statue. Then someone comes, looks at your statue, and goes away without paying.
There’s no thief, nothing was stolen at any point. The one how came looking without paying was probably never going to pay for an entrance, and the statue can me still be looked by anyone. Nothing is loss in the process, no harm is done. Some guy just looked at a statue without paying for it.
Stealing money from your account is theft, it’s not still there afterwards.
The concept I think you might’ve been looking for is opportunity cost in that pirating deprives an artist of potential sales. Which is a fair point, but it is still not the same as stealing since it does not deprive the artists of their original copy.
It’s also all done in the context of a system that is not run by artists and does not primarily benefit artists, but is instead run by and benefits middlemen.
It is coming for artists to not own their own work. Taylor Swift bought back her own work, Michael Jackson bought Paul McCartney’s work from the record company (which annoyed Paul because he would have done it otherwise).
Yes, which is a distinctly different concept from stealing. It’s copyright. Note how copyright violation isn’t in the Bible. Note how the Bible itself would never have existed if copyright existed at the time given that it is a collection of passed down stories.
Copyright is a dumb as fuck concept. Its a scarcity based system, for stuff that is not scarce.
Capitalism itself is a scarcity based system, and it falls apart somewhat when there’s abundance.
In capitalism, stuff only has value if it’s scarce. We all constantly need oxygen to live, but because it’s abundant, it’s value is zero. Capitalism does not start valuing oxygen until there are situations where it starts becoming rare.
This works for the most part in our world because physical goods by and large are scarce, but in the situations where they aren’t, capitalism doesn’t work. It’s the classic planned obscelesence lightbulb story, if you can make a dirt cheap light bulb that lasts forever, you’ll go out of business because you’ve created so much abundance that after a bit of production, you’re actually not needed at all anymore and raw market based capitalism has no mechanism to reward you long term.
The same is even more true for information. Unlike physical goods, information can flow and be copied freely at a fundamental physics level. To move a certain amount of physical matter a certain distance I need a certain amount of energy, and there are hard universal limits with energy density, but I can represent the number three using three galaxies, or three atoms. Information does not scale or behave the same, and is inherently abundant in the digital age.
Rather than develop a system that rewards digital artists based on how much something is used for free, we created copyright, which uses laws and DRM to create artificial scarcity for information, because then an author can be rewarded within capitalism since it’s scarce.
Unlike physical goods, information can flow and be copied freely at a fundamental physics level.
The electricity and silicon required to make this happen are not free, on a societal or physical level. There is a tangible cost to this transfer, even if you’re ignoring the social construct of copyright.
I think this issue comes from a misunderstanding of “free”, possibly conflating it for “trivially easy”.
Rather than develop a system that rewards digital artists based on how much something is used for free
Feel free to come up with such a system. I think you’ll find that a rather difficult task.
The electricity and silicon required to make this happen are not free, on a societal or physical level. There is a tangible cost to this transfer, even if you’re ignoring the social construct of copyright.
Completely irrelevant.
If I already have a computer and an internet connection then I’ve already paid the costs, prior to initiating that particular request.
I think this issue comes from a misunderstanding of “free”, possibly conflating it for “trivially easy”.
In the context of pricing resources, those are the same thing.
Feel free to come up with such a system. I think you’ll find that a rather difficult task.
The model is the same one used by streaming services. It’s one of reward and attribution rather artificial scarcity. Rather than having streaming and advertising middlemen you have a public system that lets everyone access what they want and rewards creators based on usages. Youtube without Google’s exorbitant profits.
Copyright has no basis in human culture or history. Our literal entire history is based on a tradition of free remixing and story telling, not copyright.
I am 100% down for sailing the high seas. But let’s not sugarcoat it, this analogy is always been kind of crap.
It’s less an analogy than the literal legal definition of theft.
Somebody went to your mailbox took out your paycheck, made a copy of it, put the original back in your box, went to the bank and cashed it.
This analogy is crap. When they took your paycheck, that was theft. Even if temporarily, you didn’t have the check. If they cash the fraudulent check, they’re not copying the money; it’s coming out of your account. That’s also theft. Both cases, the original is being removed, whether it be the physical check or the money from your account. The only reason there might be a “copy” in your analogy is some sort of fraud protection by the bank, at which point it’s the bank’s money getting stolen. Still theft though.
Theft is more than just physically removing a non-fungible item. Depriving owed earnings is also considered theft, hence why piracy is considered theft because there is a debt owed for the pirated media. If you believe in wage theft, then you believe in IP theft.
hence why piracy is considered theft because there is a debt owed for the pirated media
This is objectively false in any meaningful way. It’s certainly not considered theft (at least in the US), and there’s absolutely no debt owed for pirated media (unless you count seeding it forward).
I am 100% down for sailing the high seas. But let’s not sugarcoat it, this analogy is always been kind of crap.
Somebody went to your mailbox took out your paycheck, made a copy of it, put the original back in your box, went to the bank and cashed it.
Theft still took place. You’re probably still getting paid. Maybe it got taken up by insurance and everyone’s premium goes up a tiny fraction, maybe it got taken up by the bank or by your business.
It’s still an incomplete analogy but it’s a little bit closer.
That’s not to say that the vast majority of piracy isn’t people who wouldn’t pay anyway. And back in the day, you certainly got more visibility in your games from people who were pirating.
But now that advertising is on its toes and steam exists, I won’t think they’re getting any serious benefit from piracy and I don’t think that they’re not losing At least modest numbers of sales.
Nah. That analogy does not work.
Piracy situation is more like you have made a cool statue and you charge people money for looking at your statue. Then someone comes, looks at your statue, and goes away without paying.
There’s no thief, nothing was stolen at any point. The one how came looking without paying was probably never going to pay for an entrance, and the statue can me still be looked by anyone. Nothing is loss in the process, no harm is done. Some guy just looked at a statue without paying for it.
This is a horseshit analogy.
Stealing money from your account is theft, it’s not still there afterwards.
The concept I think you might’ve been looking for is opportunity cost in that pirating deprives an artist of potential sales. Which is a fair point, but it is still not the same as stealing since it does not deprive the artists of their original copy.
It’s also all done in the context of a system that is not run by artists and does not primarily benefit artists, but is instead run by and benefits middlemen.
The artist has ownership rights to all copies, not just the original; it’s literally in the word “copyright”.
It is coming for artists to not own their own work. Taylor Swift bought back her own work, Michael Jackson bought Paul McCartney’s work from the record company (which annoyed Paul because he would have done it otherwise).
Yes, which is a distinctly different concept from stealing. It’s copyright. Note how copyright violation isn’t in the Bible. Note how the Bible itself would never have existed if copyright existed at the time given that it is a collection of passed down stories.
Copyright is a dumb as fuck concept. Its a scarcity based system, for stuff that is not scarce.
In what way?
Capitalism itself is a scarcity based system, and it falls apart somewhat when there’s abundance.
In capitalism, stuff only has value if it’s scarce. We all constantly need oxygen to live, but because it’s abundant, it’s value is zero. Capitalism does not start valuing oxygen until there are situations where it starts becoming rare.
This works for the most part in our world because physical goods by and large are scarce, but in the situations where they aren’t, capitalism doesn’t work. It’s the classic planned obscelesence lightbulb story, if you can make a dirt cheap light bulb that lasts forever, you’ll go out of business because you’ve created so much abundance that after a bit of production, you’re actually not needed at all anymore and raw market based capitalism has no mechanism to reward you long term.
The same is even more true for information. Unlike physical goods, information can flow and be copied freely at a fundamental physics level. To move a certain amount of physical matter a certain distance I need a certain amount of energy, and there are hard universal limits with energy density, but I can represent the number three using three galaxies, or three atoms. Information does not scale or behave the same, and is inherently abundant in the digital age.
Rather than develop a system that rewards digital artists based on how much something is used for free, we created copyright, which uses laws and DRM to create artificial scarcity for information, because then an author can be rewarded within capitalism since it’s scarce.
The electricity and silicon required to make this happen are not free, on a societal or physical level. There is a tangible cost to this transfer, even if you’re ignoring the social construct of copyright.
I think this issue comes from a misunderstanding of “free”, possibly conflating it for “trivially easy”.
Feel free to come up with such a system. I think you’ll find that a rather difficult task.
Completely irrelevant.
If I already have a computer and an internet connection then I’ve already paid the costs, prior to initiating that particular request.
In the context of pricing resources, those are the same thing.
The model is the same one used by streaming services. It’s one of reward and attribution rather artificial scarcity. Rather than having streaming and advertising middlemen you have a public system that lets everyone access what they want and rewards creators based on usages. Youtube without Google’s exorbitant profits.
Copyright has no basis in human culture or history. Our literal entire history is based on a tradition of free remixing and story telling, not copyright.
It’s exited before any of us currently alive, so that’s a pretty absurd notion. Unless human culture and history ended ~300 years ago?
It’s less an analogy than the literal legal definition of theft.
This analogy is crap. When they took your paycheck, that was theft. Even if temporarily, you didn’t have the check. If they cash the fraudulent check, they’re not copying the money; it’s coming out of your account. That’s also theft. Both cases, the original is being removed, whether it be the physical check or the money from your account. The only reason there might be a “copy” in your analogy is some sort of fraud protection by the bank, at which point it’s the bank’s money getting stolen. Still theft though.
Theft is more than just physically removing a non-fungible item. Depriving owed earnings is also considered theft, hence why piracy is considered theft because there is a debt owed for the pirated media. If you believe in wage theft, then you believe in IP theft.
This is objectively false in any meaningful way. It’s certainly not considered theft (at least in the US), and there’s absolutely no debt owed for pirated media (unless you count seeding it forward).
I mean, so is not doing anything… wait i better not give them any ideas.
Do I need to need to pay for the IP of your idea?
If you aim to make significant profit with it. Yes. Otherwise i had nothing to lose to begin with.