Piracy Is Not Theft !

Well that sure was informational. Well at least I know I wasn't stealing things!

Thanks for this. I see the content industry working to confuse these two issues, and even more disturbing, I see Internet posters frequently echoing back their propaganda. High time for some clarification.

Piracy is NOT theft. The distinction IS important.

"Theft" is a a clearly-defined matter of criminal law. It is also a reasonably well-accepted moral issue (though we all understand that circumstances may vary).

"Piracy" is a poorly-defined term at best. But it is generally taken to mean "copyright infringement" by way of personal copying. Copyright is traditionally a matter of civil law -- it's a contract issue, NOT a crime as such (pre-DMCA!), and certainly NOT something that's easily translated into moral absolutes.

The content industry wants to conflate these terms because they want "piracy" to look like a clear moral issue. When in fact, it's a murky economic problem, defined chiefly in terms of profit.

I highly disagree with this. I am a writer and as a writer I am a very firm believer against piracy. Piracy is a theft!
If a person is going to work hard, devoting their time and engergy into writing something then it deserves to be protected. When you pirate, you are using something that they have done for your own use, without devoting any of your brain cells, your time, or your money. You are stealing their glory, their reward for writing.
Look at it like this.
You and another person decide to run an onehundred mile marathon.
On the day of the race, you are the only one to be at the starting point, but hey what the heck, you came this far, might as well run.
So you do, and you finish out at first.
On the way to accept your trophy, you find that the other runner has gotten their first. He apparently hasn't run at all, but yet he is recieving the price, for YOUR work.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call stealing and, ladies and gentlemen, piracy IS stealing.

Piracy IS NOT stealing, Why do you think they call it 'FILE SHARING'. Hey if I go and buy a movie from say like Walmart, I go home and rip it and convert it to DivX and upload it as a Torrent to say like PirateBay for someone to download. How can you sit there and say that's stealing when I put it out there for anybody who's interested in downloading it. File Sharing, that's what it is called and that's what I'm doing...File Sharing.

That example that you gave has nothing to do with Piracy, it has something to do with theft. There is a difference, let me correct your example that you gave. Your trophy that you won is still there waiting for you to pick up, what you saw is someone walking away from the trophy table with a replica (Copy) of your trophy and you still get the real trophy.

Besides if you don't want anybody having what you work so hard on making or writing, don't upload it. If you yourself don't upload anything to the internet anyway then you don't have anything to worry about as far as anybody 'STEALING' from you now don't you.

You might believe that piracy would ONLY hurt some writer or whatever, sure its copyright and all that, but most of the people who pirate wouldn't buy the software in the first place. So your writing or whatever might get picked up by a few groups and stop there. Done. No more cash, at least not for a long time till it gets popular, like after you die, gee that's useful. Piracy circulates your product around communities that otherwise wouldn't even bother with paid stuff when a free similar product is available for them to get instead. Here's the running story again in my words: You run, some guy records you, you get a trophy, he gets a trophy for the video. That's piracy, so what happens then? People watch the video, then pass it around, maybe some guy likes the person in the video, you get a contract and even more trophies. Happy day.

Piracy=theft makes lots of sense for people who's minds don't appear able to function beyond a binary level. I guess today's lesson was money=good and sharing=bad? Funny, when I was in primary school several decades ago they tought us sharing=good and money=the-root-of-all-evil. Of course, we didn't have the "benefit" of things like DRM and the RIAA to teach us right from wrong. :S

Piracy=cheating (as in sharing somebody else's work) I could live with, but stealing the term "theft"? That's just being greedy.

I'm really sad seeing that people in 2010 are still thinking this way. You are nothing but corrupt. And im talkin for piracy itself, i'm talking about the roots of it. 3000 years on a planet called earth, and STILL human beings are thinking for themselves, are still worried about making money for their own profit. This is sick, this is corrupt, and it can't be any other way, since money is ruling our lives. You are 5years old and get a piece of paper and a bunch of painting pens and draw a painting. And in your mind there is not a single braincell thinking: "oh i can sell this and make a lot of money". You are happy doing what ur inspired to do and freely share it with the community, which in our case are the human beings.
Ur stuck in your nation/religion (or i dunno what) cell, thinkin about yourself and yourself only. How DARE you call urself a writer when all ur thinking is selling your book. You aint no writter, ur just a salesman. And for that you should be ashamed.
I know you have heard this "crap" many times, and no i aint no communist trying to convience you for a f*cking vote, i dont want to make any money out of this, i don't want to rule this word. So open your mind to the idea of humankind being together and working for themselvs as a grp. Your writing a book is helping me to become better by reading it, so yes im happy if you write a book, and u should feel the same.

Either we like it or not, we are grown in a society that isnt ethical, we KNOW that there are people dying around the globe and still, we are thinking of how we can make more money. This is not the right way and im sure u are human enough to still feel this. I might be too young or too positive about life, u may call me crazy but the idea of african babys dying every day cause they cant be feed, while others have billions and prefer to spend them on buying a spaceship or some multinational coorp, is something im not capable of understanding.

I am rly tired of hearing: this is how the world is like, either you like it or not. I am happy to see around me (cant tell if it my illusion or not to be honnest) that ppl are begining to understand that, and want to take the next step.
Going from Licence Agreements to so called piracy, going from microsoft's paid windows to linux free distributions, it seems to me that ppl are begining to understand the NEED of human coorporation, begining through technology.

I dont want to take this any further, cause i dont know if ppl are rdy to hear what i have to say, still these first steps are important, since they will widely make ppl deny facts that are presented as token.

Sry for my bad english and thx for your time reading this post
Some 22year old human

I PERSONALLY PIRATED WINDOWS 3.0 AND 3.1 ON MANY COMPUTERS. When 95 came out, they all bought it. There were 2 ways of protecting it in those days and Bill did not use any of them. Free access brings people to evaluate ... and in time, ... they buy it. PIRACY IS THE GREATEST MEANS TO PROPAGATE SOME THING. I use it ... I like it ... I buy it. People are so afraid of losing money that the protection against piracy is their own downfall.
HEY BILL GATES READ THIS: piracy enables your software to be on many computers of people who can not buy it ... TODAY ... their situation can change tomorrow ... and they will buy. The witch hunt has to end. PIRACY FREES IT TO EVERY ONE ... people are honest ... and one day, they will buy it. Your fortune is not at risk ... for the moment; ... but free software coming out ... is your enemy.