FYI on "pirates" and "stealing" [LWN.net]

FYI on "pirates" and "stealing"

Posted Feb 8, 2007 8:40 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981)
In reply to: Russian Schools to Switch to Linux After Microsoft Piracy Case (MosNews) by lutchann
Parent article: Russian Schools to Switch to Linux After Microsoft Piracy Case (MosNews)

"Stolen" historically meant "taken away from owner, depriving him or her of it". If one doesn't buy "intellectual property" (like me, who considers it an euphemism for "slavery" since it's humans being carrier for intellect AFAIK) -- this paradigm doesn't stand a chance with digital copies.

Those who like the "piracy" term might remember what was the target for historical pirates: either another country's trade fleet during wars, or _overpriced_ goods. With commoditization of e.g. pepper (which was very pricey half a thousand years ago) it just collapsed; it's the only proven way to "fight pirates". But well, those who are calling us these names are quite real pirates themselves, on their terms: Microsoft "stole" lots of things from IntelliMouse to Internet Explorer(TM).

OTOH I'm not using unlicensed software, to the best of my knowledge -- if someone would call _me_ a robber because there would be more theirs software in the world, they don't deserve to run software on my systems.

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FYI on "pirates" and "stealing"

Posted Feb 8, 2007 18:37 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

There are plenty of instances of intellectual property actually being stolen. For example, Viacom alledgedly just recently stole somebody's software tutorial video, in the sense of making false claims to be the rightful owner of it. Technically, it's slander of title rather than larceny (since it's not a physical item whose location could be on somebody's property or person), but "stealing" isn't a technical term.

Just to get it straight,

Posted Feb 9, 2007 15:16 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

"Viacom alledgedly just recently stole somebody's software tutorial video,
in the sense of making false claims to be the rightful owner of it.
Technically, it's slander of title rather than larceny" -- no, it's
plagiarism. In law, slander of title is normally a claim involving real
estate in which one entity falsely claims to own another entity's
property. Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the
language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as
one's own original work.
To avoid any plagiarism accusations, the last two phrases are from the
current respective Wikipedia articles, as of 2006.02.09 13:15 GMT-02:00.

Just to get it straight,

Posted Feb 9, 2007 17:27 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

You're clearly not seeing the allegations in this event. Viacom evidently sent youtube a DMCA notification, falsely claiming to own the tutorial video and requesting that it be removed. They never used the tutorial video or anything like it themselves, and may never have seen it. Slander of title related to IP is rarely mentioned, because usually people falsely claiming copyright ownership can be more straightfowardly demonstrated to have infringed it by distributing the work or something related.

FYI on "pirates" and "stealing"

Posted Feb 15, 2007 17:27 UTC (Thu) by alext (guest, #7589) [Link]

No it is not stolen at least in a legal sense. It is a smear of terms probably with the (original) intent of big media companies to simplify things for convicting people in the minds of others.

To steal is an act of theft and that is defined as taking something with the intention to permanently deprive. Taking a digital copy does not do that. Which is why people like me and I suppose other "precisionists" (tossers might call them pedants) don't like the term property as you don't have possession of any property only a license (the terms of which are dependent upon amongst other things location) granted to you ultimately by the people including usually the person accused of infringing.

But the concept of a license and infringement is a lot more sophisticated for your average person to come to grips with. Hence returning to the probably cause being media giants wanting to make the obtaining of convictions easier. As theft sounds a whole lot worse than "infringement" and it is a whole lot easier to understand.