17 Jan
2003
17 Jan
'03
1:13 p.m.
On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 12:41, Marvin Johnston wrote:
Dan Wright wrote:
Your using improper terminology ... it's not theft or piracy, it's
copyright infringement ... you have been listening to the copyright
cartel.
I could never see what copying a disk had to do with boarding a ship,
raping & killing the passengers & crew and then sinking the ship. ;^)
In case your wondering I'm not some '1337 warez dude, what commercial
software I have is fully licensed thank you.
Regards,
Paul
The problem is that the "theft"
argument assumes that EVERY copy = 1 lost
sale. This argument is total bullshit. Most people who copy
music/movies/whatever wouldn't have bought it if they couldn't copy it, so no
(or at best, very few -- FAR fewer then the number of copies that are made)
actual SALES are lost. (If you don't believe me, there has been a lot of
statistical research done that shows this; about the only contradiction comes
from the RIAA's highly dubious closed-books "research". Sorry I don't
have
any sources at hand, but it's easy to find them on the WWW.) No lost sales
means there's no equivalent to real-world theft, because no property is gone
(the author/copyright owner still has their copy) and no money has been lost
(because the copy wouldn't have been a sale, anyway).
The theft argument assumes *ONLY* that someone is taking something that
doesn't belong to them without paying for it. Rationalizing theft by
saying that copy wouldn't have been bought anyway has no bearing on the
fact that it is *theft*. The "no lost sales" argument (probably on both
sides of the issue) is just a tangent. The same arguments have been made
for stealing software.