I disagree with "piracy = theft". This is a semantic argument. Theft deprives the original owner of the original good. You can steal a wallet. With piracy, you leave the original owner with the good. You have made a copy. You have committed copyright violation. That is also illegal, and therefore still a sin.
Thank you for the comment, Mooklepticon. It was definitely a thoughtful response and an opinion worth looking at.
I do not think that governmental prohibition alone sufficiently deals with the moral and ethical implications of piracy. The presence or absence of copyright law does not address the fundamental nature of the act.
The Catholic Catechism defines theft as the following:
"2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another's property against the reasonable will of the owner."
Piracy does fit that description, in my opinion.
Apart from the religious aspect, I would say that piracy is also wrong because it violates the individual rights of those involved in producing the software and/or those who have ownership of it. Property rights are a deeper matter than laws and regulations. They are a part of a decent society.
So to say that something is wrong because it is illegal, to me, is going backwards. Rather, I think that we should say that something ought to be illegal because it is wrong.
Actually I would agree with Steely and I believe the "Piracy != theft argument" is semantics in itself. Theft is, properly speaking, not merely limited to physically taking other person's belongings. In addition to what Steely said, the CCC also lists among theft the following:
"deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another." (2409)
If software ownership is a selling of the right to use the program, then the use of the item without the right being purchased, then piracy is indeed theft. I would argue so from the concept of "withholding one's due recompense"
The article is well written. Certainly some Draconian DRM (Mass Effect comes to mind here) is unjust to the consumer who legitimately pays for the item and is hindered in the fair use of it.
However, one must remember that we cannot use an evil means to achieve a desired end. Protest is a legitimate means to oppose a policy of DRM. Violating the copyright laws and defrauding the rightsholder of their royalties is not.
@Steely, I agree that theft is immoral, thus making illegal. I don't agree that copying software is immoral. I think it's made illegal, thus making us think it's immoral. There are countless examples where people make a digital good, be it music, images or games, and give it away for free. They use that digital good with a marginal cost of zero as a sampler for goods that are not free, like t-shirts, collectors editions, art books, etc.
I think that for something to be called theft it has to have a cost of production greater than zero. A digital copy of something has no marginal cost. It costs nothing to make the second instance of it. However, the first one does.
I agree that piracy is a problem, but I don't think it's the same problem that you think it is.
I still don't think that copying is theft. Theft deprives the original owner of the scarce good. If I steal your wallet, you no longer have your wallet. Copying leaves the original owner with the infinite good. If I copy a song, a game, or an image, you still have your original.
If you follow my logic, this then leads to another problem. If the government agreed and changed copyright law to make it legal (not likely to happen) then why would anyone produce music, games, or images? It then falls on the creator to come up with better business models.
For music, it's not that bad. You sell t-shirts, autographs, concerts, etc. For games? I haven't seen a good solution to that one yet. The only gaming business model that I've seen that handles piracy well is the MMO business. Their subscription or microtransaction models don't rely on the initial software creation directly. However, that leaves games like Mass Effect or Modern Warfare, etc that aren't MMOs. I haven't seen something that solves that situation effectively.
Also, you mention property rights. Intellectual property is a much, much larger issue than my brain wants to tackle right now. How can one control an idea? If I whisper an idea to you, is there really any contract I can force you to sign to prevent you from thinking about it in any way you want?
@Arnobius, heh, I said it was semantics to start with :)
So let's look at what you say here. You believe it is illegal and therefore we consider it immoral?
If so you have it entirely backwards.
Not all immoral things are illegal, and not all illegal things are immoral. However, if piracy is theft under a Christian understanding, then it is immoral.
Now let's look at some of your statements:
You said: "There are countless examples where people make a digital good, be it music, images or games, and give it away for free."
I say: Irrelevant. If one requires recompense for what they do, it is theft to make use of the product without payment.
Remember that regardless of what form of distribution the rights holder has chosen, one must pay for the goods or services if he requires payment. Otherwise it is theft.
You say: "I think that for something to be called theft it has to have a cost of production greater than zero."
I ask: Do you think the costs of development are not production? If not, on what basis do you make this assertion?
you say: "I still don't think that copying is theft. Theft deprives the original owner of the scarce good. If I steal your wallet, you no longer have your wallet. Copying leaves the original owner with the infinite good. If I copy a song, a game, or an image, you still have your original." I respond: A laborer who is defrauded of his wages is still able to labor. However the Church considers this theft. Piracy defrauds a software programmer of his wages for labor and also falls under theft.
You say: "If you follow my logic,"
I respond I believe you are actually "begging the question" making assertions which need to be proven, not taken as proved.
you continue: "this then leads to another problem. If the government agreed and changed copyright law to make it legal (not likely to happen) then why would anyone produce music, games, or images? It then falls on the creator to come up with better business models."
I respond: If the government legalizes injustice, this does not eliminate the immorality of the act. It merely allows evil to be done legally. The Christian would still be guilty of theft to partake in this.
Ultimately you argue that piracy is considered immoral only because it is currently illegal, and if it was no longer illegal it would no longer be immoral. However, Christians are bound to behave morally whether the law sanctions immorality or not.
Pornography, for example, is legal. It remains immoral for Christians to take part in it.
Likewise, if piracy takes from the income of the person who creates software, this is a defrauding of wages which is condemned by the Church.
You have said that "Intellectual property is a much, much larger issue than my brain wants to tackle right now."
However, Intellectual Property Rights are the issue. I can have an idea of "a quest to destroy the object of power which gives an evil being its strength." However once I scan "Lord of the Rings" to the Internet, I commit theft by defrauding the rights holder of those royalties.
Pirated music and software is the same issue.
February 2, 2010 at 11:21 AM
Anonymous said...
"If software ownership is a selling of the right to use the program..."
It isn't. What I bought was not my personal right to use the program, just to make it usable by installing it if it is a program. If it is a music CD, I supposedly bought a CD, I have every right over my CD, except copying, when the law says so.
"then the use of the item without the right being purchased, then piracy is indeed theft. "
As what I bought was the right to make something usable, that anyone else uses it is no theft.
What I didn't buy apparently was the right to copy it. Many saints copied books before there was industrial printing, and their right to copy came with the item. If copying without the permission of the author is sin, all these saint sinned at that. Copyright laws came a lot later, separating having property from the right to copy. Can something become sin because men made a law? No. Copying something in your property isn't intrinsically sinful, or it would be so always, law or no law. Nor selling the copy, as some saints did, unless you lie saying that you are the author. After all, the copy is your property too.
I have no right to copy? But, isn't memorizing copying? Reading out loud, isn't making an audible copy? Copyright laws say that if I bought some recipe to make roasted chicken and memorized it and some time later told you the recipe, it is illegal for you to write it down. You can memorize it, tell all your friends, and your friends tell friends and so on, but nobody can legally write it down. Why? Because it is copyrighted material. It would be piracy. Not even I can write it down.
Does that sound like stealing to you? If I tell you the recipe, am I stealing it or are you? If you memorize it from me, did you steal it from its author? If you tell you friends and they learn it did they steal? And if they write it down from you? Why wouldn't oral copying be stealing and hand-copying would? They are both copying, and with no permission from the author.
Moreover, not everything is copyrightable so, will we only consider it stealing when copyright laws make it so? If merely being the author makes it forbidden business to make copies of what I make, I will make up some new word for something at a show- and then anyone who wants to write the word down will have to pay. But if the limits are defined by man-made laws, let's make it not God's law.
October 28, 2012 at 8:39 PM
Gamers are not generally known for clean language. Most gamers I know, are pretty liberal with vulgarities. In the game community, though, there is a three letter acronym which has become the equivalent of a four-letter word: DRM, Digital Rights Management (anti-piracy measures, essentially). And it is not surprising that this is the case. In their rush to stop piracy, developers and publishers of software have included all manner of draconian and invasive methods of DRM with their products.
Piracy: My Own Thoughts in Relation to Catholic Teaching
There exist very diverse opinions concerning software piracy. They range from those who consider any unauthorized use of software to be unacceptable to those who see it as a badge of honor never to pay for software and everywhere in between. The in between is, perhaps, much more interesting than the extremes. It is there in which we see the various justifications people use for piracy.
Looking carefully at the matter, I would say that I consider software piracy to be a form of theft. As such, I would say that it is wrong under any normal circumstance. The various people in the chain of software production and sale deserve to be justly recompensed for their labors. This is a Christian principle as well as one which is in keeping with the general concept of individuals rights. Taking the fruit of someone's labor both without permission and without recompense is theft. I do not think that it matters if you are not taking a physical item, even though some people will try to justify piracy by saying that non-physical goods are somehow not afforded the same protection as physical ones.
While there are numerous different justifications which are used for piracy, I will list a few here:
1) Justification: The software is over-priced. My Thought: It could easily be replaced with "I do not want to pay for it". This argument strikes me as especially weak in light of the fact that software is not a basic human right nor, generally, do you need it for your livelihood.
2) Justification: "Try before you buy". The idea is that you pirate the software and then buy it if you like it. My Thought: This is a concept which, if you were to attempt it with most other goods, would likely not be accepted by those who are purveying them.
3) Justification: Certain publishers or, perhaps, all publishers are "rich" and/or "evil", therefore making it acceptable to pirate their products. Microsoft is a popular target for this. My Thought: This mentality does not strike me as having particular merit any more than the over-priced reasoning. Simply because someone is wealthy does not make it right to pirate from them. Not even if it is Microsoft (and please note that I am writing this on a computer running Linux).
Along with my individual responses here and the moral perspective from a religious and individual rights point of view, I would also like to add a practical test for personal actions. It is always good to ask: "What would be the result if everyone else were to do as I do?" In this case, if everyone pirated, then it would become difficult to profit from the production of software and many high-end games and powerful applications would no longer be available to us. Further, it would be a great injustice to those who labor to create software for our use.
There is one more justification for piracy which I find, perhaps, the most interesting:
Protest.
Yes, sometimes people use software piracy as a means of protest against some policy or other which a developer or publisher undertakes. Ironically, as was the case with the game Spore, it can even be a response to draconian DRM (anti-piracy) measures. Once again, I would not endorse the idea of pirating software simply because the developer or publisher has made you angry. At the same time, a part of the reason I am looking at this issue on this blog is the very phenomena of piracy as protest.
NOTE: This article is NOT addressing issues such as "abandonware" and foreign titles not released in your native language. I will talk about that in a different article as it is rather a different circumstance.
NOTE 2: I am also not a fan of DRM, despite not supporting piracy.
"DRM - Reasonable or Unreasonable? (Part 1)"
6 Comments -
I disagree with "piracy = theft". This is a semantic argument. Theft deprives the original owner of the original good. You can steal a wallet. With piracy, you leave the original owner with the good. You have made a copy. You have committed copyright violation. That is also illegal, and therefore still a sin.
So, still wrong, but not theft.
February 1, 2010 at 4:23 PM
Thank you for the comment, Mooklepticon. It was definitely a thoughtful response and an opinion worth looking at.
I do not think that governmental prohibition alone sufficiently deals with the moral and ethical implications of piracy. The presence or absence of copyright law does not address the fundamental nature of the act.
The Catholic Catechism defines theft as the following:
"2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another's property against the reasonable will of the owner."
Piracy does fit that description, in my opinion.
Apart from the religious aspect, I would say that piracy is also wrong because it violates the individual rights of those involved in producing the software and/or those who have ownership of it. Property rights are a deeper matter than laws and regulations. They are a part of a decent society.
So to say that something is wrong because it is illegal, to me, is going backwards. Rather, I think that we should say that something ought to be illegal because it is wrong.
February 1, 2010 at 6:10 PM
Actually I would agree with Steely and I believe the "Piracy != theft argument" is semantics in itself. Theft is, properly speaking, not merely limited to physically taking other person's belongings. In addition to what Steely said, the CCC also lists among theft the following:
"deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another." (2409)
If software ownership is a selling of the right to use the program, then the use of the item without the right being purchased, then piracy is indeed theft. I would argue so from the concept of "withholding one's due recompense"
The article is well written. Certainly some Draconian DRM (Mass Effect comes to mind here) is unjust to the consumer who legitimately pays for the item and is hindered in the fair use of it.
However, one must remember that we cannot use an evil means to achieve a desired end. Protest is a legitimate means to oppose a policy of DRM. Violating the copyright laws and defrauding the rightsholder of their royalties is not.
February 1, 2010 at 9:49 PM
@Steely, I agree that theft is immoral, thus making illegal. I don't agree that copying software is immoral. I think it's made illegal, thus making us think it's immoral. There are countless examples where people make a digital good, be it music, images or games, and give it away for free. They use that digital good with a marginal cost of zero as a sampler for goods that are not free, like t-shirts, collectors editions, art books, etc.
I think that for something to be called theft it has to have a cost of production greater than zero. A digital copy of something has no marginal cost. It costs nothing to make the second instance of it. However, the first one does.
I agree that piracy is a problem, but I don't think it's the same problem that you think it is.
I still don't think that copying is theft. Theft deprives the original owner of the scarce good. If I steal your wallet, you no longer have your wallet. Copying leaves the original owner with the infinite good. If I copy a song, a game, or an image, you still have your original.
If you follow my logic, this then leads to another problem. If the government agreed and changed copyright law to make it legal (not likely to happen) then why would anyone produce music, games, or images? It then falls on the creator to come up with better business models.
For music, it's not that bad. You sell t-shirts, autographs, concerts, etc. For games? I haven't seen a good solution to that one yet. The only gaming business model that I've seen that handles piracy well is the MMO business. Their subscription or microtransaction models don't rely on the initial software creation directly. However, that leaves games like Mass Effect or Modern Warfare, etc that aren't MMOs. I haven't seen something that solves that situation effectively.
Also, you mention property rights. Intellectual property is a much, much larger issue than my brain wants to tackle right now. How can one control an idea? If I whisper an idea to you, is there really any contract I can force you to sign to prevent you from thinking about it in any way you want?
@Arnobius, heh, I said it was semantics to start with :)
February 2, 2010 at 8:29 AM
@Mooklepticon
So let's look at what you say here. You believe it is illegal and therefore we consider it immoral?
If so you have it entirely backwards.
Not all immoral things are illegal, and not all illegal things are immoral. However, if piracy is theft under a Christian understanding, then it is immoral.
Now let's look at some of your statements:
You said: "There are countless examples where people make a digital good, be it music, images or games, and give it away for free."
I say: Irrelevant. If one requires recompense for what they do, it is theft to make use of the product without payment.
Remember that regardless of what form of distribution the rights holder has chosen, one must pay for the goods or services if he requires payment. Otherwise it is theft.
You say: "I think that for something to be called theft it has to have a cost of production greater than zero."
I ask: Do you think the costs of development are not production? If not, on what basis do you make this assertion?
you say: "I still don't think that copying is theft. Theft deprives the original owner of the scarce good. If I steal your wallet, you no longer have your wallet. Copying leaves the original owner with the infinite good. If I copy a song, a game, or an image, you still have your original."
I respond: A laborer who is defrauded of his wages is still able to labor. However the Church considers this theft. Piracy defrauds a software programmer of his wages for labor and also falls under theft.
You say: "If you follow my logic,"
I respond I believe you are actually "begging the question" making assertions which need to be proven, not taken as proved.
you continue: "this then leads to another problem. If the government agreed and changed copyright law to make it legal (not likely to happen) then why would anyone produce music, games, or images? It then falls on the creator to come up with better business models."
I respond: If the government legalizes injustice, this does not eliminate the immorality of the act. It merely allows evil to be done legally. The Christian would still be guilty of theft to partake in this.
Ultimately you argue that piracy is considered immoral only because it is currently illegal, and if it was no longer illegal it would no longer be immoral. However, Christians are bound to behave morally whether the law sanctions immorality or not.
Pornography, for example, is legal. It remains immoral for Christians to take part in it.
Likewise, if piracy takes from the income of the person who creates software, this is a defrauding of wages which is condemned by the Church.
You have said that "Intellectual property is a much, much larger issue than my brain wants to tackle right now."
However, Intellectual Property Rights are the issue. I can have an idea of "a quest to destroy the object of power which gives an evil being its strength." However once I scan "Lord of the Rings" to the Internet, I commit theft by defrauding the rights holder of those royalties.
Pirated music and software is the same issue.
February 2, 2010 at 11:21 AM
"If software ownership is a selling of the right to use the program..."
It isn't. What I bought was not my personal right to use the program, just to make it usable by installing it if it is a program. If it is a music CD, I supposedly bought a CD, I have every right over my CD, except copying, when the law says so.
"then the use of the item without the right being purchased, then piracy is indeed theft. "
As what I bought was the right to make something usable, that anyone else uses it is no theft.
What I didn't buy apparently was the right to copy it. Many saints copied books before there was industrial printing, and their right to copy came with the item. If copying without the permission of the author is sin, all these saint sinned at that. Copyright laws came a lot later, separating having property from the right to copy. Can something become sin because men made a law? No. Copying something in your property isn't intrinsically sinful, or it would be so always, law or no law. Nor selling the copy, as some saints did, unless you lie saying that you are the author. After all, the copy is your property too.
I have no right to copy? But, isn't memorizing copying? Reading out loud, isn't making an audible copy? Copyright laws say that if I bought some recipe to make roasted chicken and memorized it and some time later told you the recipe, it is illegal for you to write it down. You can memorize it, tell all your friends, and your friends tell friends and so on, but nobody can legally write it down. Why? Because it is copyrighted material. It would be piracy. Not even I can write it down.
Does that sound like stealing to you? If I tell you the recipe, am I stealing it or are you? If you memorize it from me, did you steal it from its author? If you tell you friends and they learn it did they steal? And if they write it down from you? Why wouldn't oral copying be stealing and hand-copying would? They are both copying, and with no permission from the author.
Moreover, not everything is copyrightable so, will we only consider it stealing when copyright laws make it so? If merely being the author makes it forbidden business to make copies of what I make, I will make up some new word for something at a show- and then anyone who wants to write the word down will have to pay. But if the limits are defined by man-made laws, let's make it not God's law.
October 28, 2012 at 8:39 PM