Are you seriously trying to equate someone giving you their used book, with pirating a digital book when you should pay for it?
Semantic games; again.
Once again, addressed this flimsy argument here:
Notice how the pro-piracy arguments have started to progress from "Copying isn't theft/Easy copying isn't theft" to "Once something becomes digital, it's no longer what it was, so it's okay to steal." As I basically said before, if pirates could figure out a way to digitize a car, and then make it a physical copy again, they would rationalize it as being not theft.
The fact that the mental gymnastics are getting more and more elaborate and ludicrous is telling.
Levi Miller
The real mental gymnasts are those that try to rationalize copying as theft. Spoiler alert: copying is how books were distributed for thousands of years. Furthermore, christian monasteries were by far the biggest culprits. And yet, the idea that they were stealing was never a point of contention. Why? Because the idea of intellectual property is new and absolutely absurd. "But poor Sally! She can't make money selling adult romance novels on kindle???" Well no, it's not because someone puts work into something that they are morally deserving of compensation. If someone tries to make money off of an absurd idea, like selling intellectual "property", they are playing a fool's game and don't deserve money or respect for what they do, and least of all the money they get from the suckers who buy into their scam.
Landon Johnson
I feel like we just had this thread. Did OP pirate it?
Nolan Bailey
Horrible example. If you copy a book I have written, I still have the original (tangible) book, and I also still “have” the pattern of words that constitute the book. Thus, authored works are not scarce in the same sense that a piece of land or a car are scarce. If you take my car, I no longer have it. But if you “take” a book-pattern and use it to make your own physical book, I still have my own copy.
The fundamental social and ethical function of property rights is to prevent interpersonal conflict over scarce resources. The problem with IP rights is that the ideal objects protected by IP rights are not scarce. Ideas are not naturally scarce, but by recognizing a right in an ideal object, one creates scarcity where none existed before.
Connor Ward
And here we go:
"IT ABSOLUTELY MUST BE PHYSICAL IN ORDER TO BE DESERVING OF COMPENSATION! (just ignore the fact that if we can digitize the physical copy, we'll steal that too: )
This argument also implies:
You are literally just regurgitating the "Copying is not theft argument" word for word, without considering the changes in how products are distributed in the modern marketplace!
The pro-piracy arguments are literally ad nauseam at this point.
True. True. When did I say that books are new? Are you being daft on purpose.
Btw, repeating arguments and calling them mental gymnastics doesn't make them so. You should try articulating counter-arguments instead of screaming about "muh mental gymnastics". However, it's obvious from the way you're reacting that you've been cornered and have nothing to say.
Wyatt Reyes
But, I'm fine with #3 too.
Patent is as absurd as copyright and and piracy law. I'm only glad the windshield wiper guy got paid because it was finally a day when the law benefiting an average Joe, instead of only benefiting the uber-elite.
The best law, however, would eliminate patent and copyright law. Do you know how many millions, probably billions, are wasted each year on patent lawyers? This is a net loss to society, smart people could be inventing stuff or making stuff and instead they make their money by arguing who owns what idea. Literally ten of thousands, if not more, people make over 100K a year to create nothing of value - just argue about ownership. You think that's a good system?
Not to mention all the inventors it keeps out of the market. If average Joe invents something original, he'll still be sued into oblivion by 20 patent troll attorneys and rarely makes any money off it.
There's like 100 patents alone on just carbon nanofibers that are gumming up the works so no one can work on nanotechnology without getting sued.
So, yeah, all the pro-piracy arguments are really solid when you look at the social ramifications of enforcing them.
Angel Hughes
OK!
Angel Gonzalez
That first part of your pic is some pretty ridiculous gymnastics. Legally, piracy is not theft. An element of theft requires the taking, again TAKING of another's property. The property must be tangible- hypothetical things like lost profits are damages, not a taking, and do not support a theory of theft. LEGALLY PIRACY IS NOT THEFT, THAT'S WHY IT FALLS UNDER PIRACY LAW AND HAS A SPECIAL LAW WRITTEN FOR IT.
Now, copyright and patent law is also horribly damaging to society, see
So, while I can see the argument that we should all respect the law as written, we should all also be desperately lobbying to eliminate copyright and patent law.
Eli Moore
That falls under patent, not copyright, but it still accurate regarding how things would go down.
