I have to disagree, based on US laws though (as ruled by the Supreme Court), as well as semantically.

Really, if theft = copyright infringement = trademark infringement, why do you have so many terms and different laws applying to each?

Check out Dowling vs. United States.

The question is not whether or not they're violations. The question is, WHICH violations. Otherwise, one could call "murder" as "theft" since it is technically stealing someone's life. Same as "rape" as it is "theft" of their right to not have sex, and so on. Should I charge telemarketers with "theft" of my time when they call me?

Also, the whole lost sale thing is a really flawed argument. It is really only a lost sale *if* the person would have purchased the product if they did not have the substitute. A rather faulty assumption, but one made all the time anyway.

After all, I doubt I'll ever be able to afford a nice yacht. If I somehow replicated a yacht, did the company *really* lose a sale to me? I also probably would not buy products for women, but if I was able to make them magically appear, and did find a use for them somehow (heck, even if it's just recycling it), did they really lose a sale to me?

I'm not saying copyright infringment isn't against the current laws (whether or not I think copyrights are a good thing is another matter), but in terms of the discussion at hand, I'd much prefer people used words that actually say what they mean.

Actually, the potato and tomato thing isn't semantics, since semantics deals with different meanings of words. All those different ways of saying the same thing still mean the same thing, so it's more about speech differences in different cultures/geographies (certainly a part of linguistics, but not semantics)

See what happens when you play fast and loose with the correct definitions of words?
It's actually kinda similar to Creationists who conflate "scientific theories" with "hypotheses".

And like I said, I'm not arguing about whether their rights are violated. I'm arguing about *which* rights are violated.

BTW, it's your turn to bring up a more recent court ruling where the Supreme Court actually said that theft is the same thing as copyright infringement.

The No Electronic Theft Act (1997)? Last I heard Congress makes laws, not the Supreme court.

Yes, but the Supreme Court interprets them.

Check the actual wordings in the act. Are they punished as theft, or as copyright infringement?

I repeat, if you insist that theft is the same thing under the law as copyright infringement, then you *must* also agree, in order to remain logically consistent, that people who murder, rape, call people on the Do Not Call list, etc. should be charged with theft as their crime as well.

Janet Reno called it theft and stealing. "And deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft."

Um, nope. Read the quote carefully again. It's saying it's basically unlawful as well. Well duh, they're both against the law, and thus unlawful. It's like saying murder is no less an unlawful taking of a person's right as rape. That doesn't make them the same thing. And most importantly, that's not my point. (In fact, punishments for copyright infringement tend to be heavier than actual theft, another reason why they're not actually the same).

It would help if you spent your time picking out actually relevant quotes to the discussion instead of quote mining in order to burn down strawmen.

Let me say for the 4th or so time, I am *NOT* arguing whether it's unlawful or not. I am arguing under WHICH law it's unlawful. Any more arguments stating that copyright infringement is unlawful is nothing more than strawmen as they have nothing to do with what I'm arguing. If you can't actually argue against my point, then there's no reason to continue our discussion.

Really, if copyright infringement was the same thing as theft, they would have simply replaced every instance of "copyright infringement" in the article with "theft," but they don't, and the punishments for copyright infringement and theft would be the same. But they aren't, and thus they are not the same. It's really that simple. But it baffles me that people don't understand that.

Here, I'll make it easy. Explain to me why two unlawful acts, that are supposedly (by your argument) the same thing, are treated differently, in what the defendant is charged with (copyright infringement vs. theft), what courts they generally go to (civil vs. criminal), and the type of punishments they generally receive (huge fines vs. smaller fines). Heck, I'm quite sure most people charged with copyright infringement would much rather have been charged with theft as the monetary penalties are *much* less. Link
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BTW, I just benefitted from the rampant piracy here in Thailand. $15 legit version of Half-Life 2 (and Battlefield 2 as well) (the bootleg version is about $3.50). The wonders of economic laws and economic substitutes causing competition and thus lower prices.

The only quote in your post was from Janet Reno, along with alleged quotes from other sources. But considering your quote from Janet Reno was incorrect, I'd like to see the actual quotes in context from the others.

No, fraud is neither theft, nor stealing. It is fraud. There's a reason we have the word "fraud," to describe the act, why not use it? You still haven't answered why you don't think murder and rape is theft.

Common usage of words is not actually the best way they are used. Scientists talk about theories all the time to mean hypotheses, even though they realize there is a distinction between theory used by common folk (like stealing as used by you and those people), and theory as defined in science, and then we get Creationists who then think this gives them the right to then say that this means the "Theory of Evolution" is really the "Hypothesis of Evolution"
. It's just flip sides of the same coin with this discussion. And broad usage of "stealing" is just as wrong here as it is with the broad usage of "theory" there (BTW, the whole all your beliefs are "religion" used by certain theists is the same issue).

Heck, by your definition of stealing, if company A decides to offer some product to me at a lower price than company B, and I decide to buy company A's product, company A just stole a sale from company B! That means company B can take company A to court for theft! So answer me, do you think murder and rape are "theft" as well? Come on I've asked you this several times and you kept avoiding it. Surely you're capable of being logically consistent and saying yes to this!

You didn't actually give out Justice Breyer's quote in that post. You just made the claim he made some statement that meant something. That's not called a quote. Neither is simply saying X law claims to state something. If you're saying it's in the title, I say it's a misnomer, and read the actual text of the law. Here, I'll make it easy. http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/17-18red.htm - note that other than the title, "theft" is *never* mentioned in the rest of the law, for good reason. The title of the act is really nothing more than a psychological tool used by the **(A)A when they lobbied for the law, not to mention "NET" sounds a lot better as an acronymn than "NECI".

Murder is theft of the person's life. Rape is theft of the person's right to not have sex with you. How is that not stealing?

You're saying nobody's been charged with "theft"? Oh REALLY? Let's look what falls under "theft" http://criminalattorneysandiego.com/theft.html "PETTY THEFT, BURGLARY, ROBBERY, EMBEZZLEMENT, FORGERY, INSURANCE FRAUD" - hey, no copyright infringement! And what's "petty theft" if not "theft"?

BTW, I think we're both getting a bit heated in our responses, so I'm gonna sit out for a while and be back tomorrow.

Bleah, I guess I will respond before tomorrow.

Ok, so I confused Janet Reno with Breyer's quotes, so the above I said about Janet Reno should've applied to Breyer's quotes. So I have to address Janet Reno's quotes. Ok, so that's her personal opinion, it isn't an actual ruling. So your point?

No, my point is that if the law doesn't actually use that word, then fine, use it, but it's just like Creationists calling evolution a "theory" and meaning hypothesis. If that's fine with you, nothing I can do about it.

Ah ha, so are you going to take me to court for "stealing" or "theft"? It's not actually a strawman, your definitions of stealing really are too broad. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of your definition. Since you agree calling murder and rape as "stealing" is stupid, you've basically agreed that you're being logically inconsistent. I'm fine with that as well.

Uh uh, but I do consider stealing and theft as properly related words. So unless you're going to argue that they're not the same, then what I said about you saying nobody has been charged with theft applies. But are you sure you want to take that position?

BTW, my point is not really to convince *you*, but rather the other people reading this. Years of debating with Creationists has shown that usually the people you're arguing with won't admit they're wrong, and won't even agree to disagree, but that doesn't matter. It's the people on the fence that need to be convinced.

And seriously, take a deep breath and chill out.

Did I actually call you stupid? No, I called the broad usage of your definition stupid, just as I would call broad definitions of "religion" stupid. Stop being so friggin' defensive.

And yes, I know a lot of people call it "theft," but that doesn't mean it really should be how it's used. It's like a lot of people call people "hackers" when the correct term for what they're really talking about is "crackers". Yeah, the common people use it, people in the government use it, that doesn't meant it's the real word, although people do understand what they mean. But that gets into a debate on the philosophy of language. Now if you're really interested in that debate, *maybe* I'll humor you, but not in this thread.

Of course Webster doesn't invent the language. But the problem with culture is that it's not one homogenous mass. That is why people disagree, as we are now. Of course sitting by and doing nothing doesn't really help your view either. That's why you are sitting there writing back as well.

Seriously, let's just agree to disagree here.

P2P is practically the only way to get good software in many countries, especially in the third world... I should know, I live in Colombia. The thing is, why would I pay 40 USD for some software that doesn't do anything relevant or productive (no matter how cool it is) when I make less than 5 USD an hour? There needs to be a new model for international sales, I bet this would bring piracy through P2P down.

And in case you're wondering, 5 USD is about 5 times the minimum wage.

Sorry about how long my post is, I can never find a way to express myself in few words. In todays world most people are not smart enough and details are necesary. I realize there are many different topics on this one article so I would like to make my own statements on each.

Here’s my 2 cents on this article, and some of the posts made after. Making the creator of a program responsible for how his product is used makes no sense to me, even if it seems to be with the intent of a criminal activity. Here is an example: Why do gun companies make guns? For display, sports maybe, or maybe for self-defense? Ah, but that would mean you would have to hurt someone, or worse even kill them. I thought taking someone’s life was illegal. Except in self-defense, and even that can be argued. But in the end guns are used to murder people, to wage wars, to steal, to give cops excuse to kill someone rather than take them to jail (but that’s another topic). Should the gun companies be responsible for the misuse of their products? After all, the intent of a gun is to do harm in the first place. Even when hunting. I personally have never seen anyone use a gun to make a hole in the wall instead of a drill or to knock something down they couldn’t reach. Should we make pharmaceutical companies responsible for the misuse of their medicine as drugs to get high? Get my point?

Kazaa and the likes make software worthless? Well, I guess you can say that. But the way I see it is that software was expensive before all of thing. That’s why so much open source software is available. Kazaa only made it easy for people who couldn’t afford it to get it. Eventually people began to abuse the system. Companies were forced to lower prices to keep up but even then it wasn’t enough. I have tried most of the software that Stardock has and let me tell you that those are not simple programs. They require a lot of programming to get it right. BTW there is no such thing as making a software perfect as you mention here: “Yet we'll see someone complain that a software product that took years to perfect that people run every day for years that costs $20 is too expensive.” That’s why there are versions; if it were perfect there would be no need to make a newer version.

I have to believe that if all this illegal file-swapping wasn’t going on, Stardock would not be selling their software at those prices. I mean how is it possible that a collection of Stardock software, that can alter the look of an entire computer screen, cost only $50 yet a software like Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, that only alter images and graphics, cost between $129 and $600. Think about it, most Stardock software is for fun use while software like Photoshop and Paint Shop are used by professionals in most cases. So really, in a way people think Stardock software is too expensive simply cause they can’t afford it and if they could it would probably be to complex for them anyways and possibly even crash their PC, while a $20 Pizza Dinner is a no brainer. Oh and BTW I believe it’s kinda dumb to compare a Pizza Dinner to a $20 software. I mean how much material do you use to make software? Once you make it all you really used was time and electricity. No materials involved and once done copies are endless for free. You don’t have to keep ordering more materials to make more of software. Imagine if Pizza was made the same way as software and there were no materials needed to make more pizzas, would you think paying $20 to eat pizza for years is a good deal? Think while all you need is a nice PC at home to make even the most complex of software and once made there is no need to have 500 of them in stock cause one can be copied over and over, a Pizzeria needs an entire establishment full of machines and ingredients just to make enough pizza to feed all those who are DLing your one copy of software.

So yes I do agree that these companies are making money off of illegal file sharing and to that point they should be held responsible. They are after all making money off of someone else’s product without permission. And yes Dling illegal software is wrong. But, and that’s a big but, today we live in a world where the only thing that matters is money. In the end the whole concern over pirated software is not that someone is just breaking the law, it’s all about how much money a company is losing. People now a days want to get rich fast and will go out a make a crappy products and sell as many as they can before people realize the product stinks. Software is no exception. And those who can’t afford it feel they deserve to have it as much as those who can afford it and find ways to get it. The truth is that even though many here believe that people wouldn’t steal electronics like they would steal software, if given the chance people would take or buy stolen electronics, which many already do. The only problem is a piece of software on a PC is not as noticeable to many as a $5000 62 inch flat screen TV in the livingroom that many know you couldn’t afford.

I admit I have Dled software myself and I could care less. The way I see it is the day the companies make a product with the costumer in mind rather than the money then I will consider changing my mind about it. In the meantime deal with it. I guess companies now know what it feels like when the shoe is on the other foot when they were the ones trying to get every last penny from consumer’s pockets.

Oh yea one last thing, stealing is stealing. Whether its software, music, a copyrighted logo from a site, a life, virginity, a piece of gum, etc. If it doesn’t belong to you and it is not given with permission it is stealing. The only thing in life that you can’t take even though it’s yours is your own life. Even suicidal people go to jail for trying to kill themselves.

And that’s my 2 cents. I respect yours and everyone else’s opinions, I am not here to convince anyone. I just wanted to point out the way I see this world, and never forget no matter how you see things we all live on the same planet, we all grew up looking at the world from a different perspective, it is impossible for any 2 people to stand in the same spot and look at the same exact thing at the same time. Hope you get what I mean. Thanx for reading.