Quote:
Originally Posted by habernac
There is no scarcity when you are talking about intellectual property, so arguments comparing physical property theft and intellectual property theft are misleading and incorrect.
Come on, Bobblehead. If you download a copy of a movie, the company that produced it is getting squat. That's stealing, period. No amount of technological babble is going to change that.
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No,
it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement. Both are illegal*, but there is a very important legal distinction there. Bobblehead nailed it; if I walk into HMV and shoplift a copy of the Transformers DVD, HMV loses the cost they paid their wholesaler for the product and the profit they would have earned when an honest customer purchased it. If I download that same movie from a torrent, no tangible goods have been stolen, and no retailer loses inventory or future profits from that inventory.
I'm not trying to defend illegal downloaders, but when people try to equate it to theft, as the MPAA does in their advertising campaigns, they're muddying the waters and being intellectually dishonest. Theft and copyright infringement are two very different crimes.
*In the US, anyway. Downloading copyrighted music (and movies?) has been deemed legal by the Supreme Court of Canada.
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Too slow!