Dudley wrote:
Kovacs Caprios wrote:
Dudley wrote:
Quote:
Is to remove someting without permission theft, even if it is just copy?
Or do you class theft as you have to remove an original?
Largely irrelevant, since a copy removes nothing.
but it is still removed with out the owners permission.
No. It fucking well isn't.
NOTHING. IS. REMOVED.
I think the point Kovacs was making was that
any opportunity of making a sale/profit is
probably "removed", i.e. there IS a tangible loss to the copyright owner. We can argue about whether this 'lost sale' applies to 1% or 99% of all pirated software/music downloads or whatever, but the basic principle holds.
I don't need 'hard evidence' to instinstively know that for most people, if given the "choice" between spending £40 of their limited cash on a new game that they
seriously want (e.g. GTA4 or whatever) or simply robbing it off of bittorrent or via one of their IT savvy mates, many will go for the 'freebie' almost every time. And the chances of their subsequently thinking '... y'know what, I love this game so much that, despite my already having it, I'm going to buy it anyway 'cause I just lurrrve the CD cover and all the associated documentation!' is almost nil. To claim/think otherwise is surely perverse?
Hence, this
will result in a definite lost sale and lost revenue scenario for the legitimate owner of the pirated goods and that being the case, the actual interests of the copyright owner are directly and irrefutably harmed, however you care to dress it up or pretend that it somehow ain't so.
Not all download scenarios will be as clear cut as this to be sure, and no doubt there're plenty of examples of more casual 'consumption' by indifferent users, but certainly there will be at least
some that are like the example I describe.
You can claim that the copyright owners are tossers and/or charge too much for their stuff etc. for all I care, and you might even be right, but even if true this is still entirely besides the point. Equally, I don't think anyone here (least of all me) is claiming that the illicit downloading and copying of software/music for one's own use is actual theft
according to English Law, either. This is a matter of plain fact, and I am quite prepared to accept at face value that it is not "theft" according to the legal definition of the term.
I don't claim to be a paragon of virtue in respect of having occasionally copied stuff like mates' CDs or whatever etc., but then again I didn't ram it down anyone's throat as to what a supposed big favour I was doing the music industry either, or even claim that my actions were wholly moral and victimless in all respects.
_________________
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