Driving off with the rental car is a fine analogy if we were comparing this to not returning a DVD you rented.
But this is not that. And that is kind of the point.
Piracy is a breach of contract for sure. The point the author is trying to make is that our current licensing contracts around media are out of touch with the social contract (you pay for something, you get it).
Hence the moral hazard. So companies will flaunt the social contract (like in the case of Sony) with impunity but will get rightous as soon as people flaunt the legal contract. It’s a double standard, where all the power is in the hands of those with the biggest legal department.
You can hardly call any of this justice. So if there is no agreed justice, then other concepts built on it, like “theft”, go right out the window.
Oh I agree with the article as I already stated in my previous comment, and I hope people read it, because my only argument really is that it has a poor headline. The headline says that taking media that you wouldn’t have owned isn’t piracy (which is nonsense), the article says that piracy is justified when ownership is as nebulous as it often is with a lot of digital media these days (which I agree with).
The headline says “you’re told that what you’re doing is buying by the people selling you the media, but that’s not what you’re actually doing. So, if they’re lying to you about what you’re buying, then pirating a different thing isn’t stealing the thing they are trying to sell you.”
It’s definitely tongue in cheek and has some hyperbole in it, but that is the gist of the statement.
then pirating a different thing isn’t stealing the thing they are trying to sell you.
Maybe not that version of the thing specifically, but it’s still stealing if they ultimately created it and you obtained it ignoring their conditions for sale.
Don’t get me wrong, you have a really good point. A lot of times the bootleg version of a good is better than the legal version because of the legal version’s tos and spyware enforcing them. I just don’t see how obtaining the bootleg isn’t piracy/stealing. There’s good justification for stealing it imo (as a pirate myself), but that’s all it is, justification. It’s still stealing.
So I guess I’m just being pedantic when I say I disagree with you, but realize I see where you’re coming from, and that we basically agree in spirit
Driving off with the rental car is a fine analogy if we were comparing this to not returning a DVD you rented.
But this is not that. And that is kind of the point.
Piracy is a breach of contract for sure. The point the author is trying to make is that our current licensing contracts around media are out of touch with the social contract (you pay for something, you get it).
Hence the moral hazard. So companies will flaunt the social contract (like in the case of Sony) with impunity but will get rightous as soon as people flaunt the legal contract. It’s a double standard, where all the power is in the hands of those with the biggest legal department.
You can hardly call any of this justice. So if there is no agreed justice, then other concepts built on it, like “theft”, go right out the window.
Oh I agree with the article as I already stated in my previous comment, and I hope people read it, because my only argument really is that it has a poor headline. The headline says that taking media that you wouldn’t have owned isn’t piracy (which is nonsense), the article says that piracy is justified when ownership is as nebulous as it often is with a lot of digital media these days (which I agree with).
No no, that is not what the headline says.
The headline says “you’re told that what you’re doing is buying by the people selling you the media, but that’s not what you’re actually doing. So, if they’re lying to you about what you’re buying, then pirating a different thing isn’t stealing the thing they are trying to sell you.”
It’s definitely tongue in cheek and has some hyperbole in it, but that is the gist of the statement.
Maybe not that version of the thing specifically, but it’s still stealing if they ultimately created it and you obtained it ignoring their conditions for sale.
Don’t get me wrong, you have a really good point. A lot of times the bootleg version of a good is better than the legal version because of the legal version’s tos and spyware enforcing them. I just don’t see how obtaining the bootleg isn’t piracy/stealing. There’s good justification for stealing it imo (as a pirate myself), but that’s all it is, justification. It’s still stealing.
So I guess I’m just being pedantic when I say I disagree with you, but realize I see where you’re coming from, and that we basically agree in spirit
I get ya. I think there’s also a petulant sentiment of “you don’t want to play fair? Then fuck you, I won’t either”