Current Events > Why *is* media piracy a criminal offense and not merely a civil issue?

(+) Yeah! (+)

(The interpol topic got me thinking.)

Copying a work of art or media is not property theft. There's literally nothing stolen.

Other than "corps made it so, because end stage capitalism works like that," what makes this act something all the countries have decided it's a criminal act instead of just something to sue another party over?

There is no 'other than'.

Because money

Because you are hurting a business. Sonyou need to go to jail. Ppl made fun of this women who called 911 when McDonald's did not give her her nuggets or a refund. When they messed up. But of she reached behind the counter and stole that same amount people would not question why the police was called. We are trained to let business get away with stealing from people.

Because corporations are legally allowed to bribe lawmakers.

Lobbying.

The media industry is just very strong with their influence, and was able to frame it all over the place.

In german the most common term for media piracy is "Raubkopie", (Raub = robbery, kopie = copy"), so piracy is framed as violent and physical assault using force.

Why?

Because they can.

Isn't it only a criminal offense that actually gets prosecuted when you're selling the work yourself?

The prosecutions I've seen for it is like people making millions of dollars selling other people's software.

I think it's pretty obvious there'd be some big issues for modern digital media production if there was no real enforcement against someone setting up a url one letter away from yours and giving away what you're selling, even if no, it's not theft per se.

I think it's less the copying and more the sharing. Consider that the majority of people busted for this stuff are usually uploading things as well.

As soon as you start handling distribution then you become the competition, and in capitalism the legal system works for whoever pays it the most. Since that's the entertainment industry, and not you, they get to use it to make random examples out of people in order to keep everyone else in line.

It's basically like Breaking Bad.

cjsdowg posted...

Because you are hurting a business. Sonyou need to go to jail. Ppl made fun of this women who called 911 when McDonald's did not give her her nuggets or a refund. When they messed up. But of she reached behind the counter and stole that same amount people would not question why the police was called. We are trained to let business get away with stealing from people.

This is true

pinky0926 posted...

Because money

Literally this

Wherethisfeom posted...

No written work that doesn't directly endorse or contribute to real world violence and danger should be a criminal offense.

Not all crimes are violent to be fair

I think simple piracy shouldnt be a criminal offense in pretty much all cases, but when people start making profit off it, thats when it gets dicey.

Because it's theft.

As a former pirate, and I've gone over it a ton of times why I pirated, there's truly no reason to pirate anymore. Almost everything is readily available at your fingertips and it's all insanely cheap now.

You like movies, just get a theater sub, it's like $25 a month to see 12 movies a month. Streaming services have almost every episode of nearly everything.

ssb_yunglink2 posted...

Not all crimes are violent to be fair

I think simple piracy shouldnt be a criminal offense in pretty much all cases, but when people start making profit off it, thats when it gets dicey.

This, and it's why, typically, the only cases you hear about are because people made profit off of it. You shouldn't be able to profit off of somebody else's work without their consent, that seems pretty standard across the board.

ClayGuida posted...

Because it's theft.

It literally isn't, theft is the unlawful confiscation of property.

Word definitions matter.

Diceheist posted...

It literally isn't, theft is the unlawful confiscation of property.

Word definitions matter.

Do go on. Tell us more.

Diceheist posted...

It literally isn't, theft is the unlawful confiscation of property.

Word definitions matter.

It's still theft.

Diceheist posted...

It literally isn't, theft is the unlawful confiscation of property.

Word definitions matter.

I think thats kind of a limited definition of theft in the modern world

That definition wouldnt even apply to something like identity theft

ClayGuida posted...

Because it's theft.

As a former pirate, and I've gone over it a ton of times why I pirated, there's truly no reason to pirate anymore. Almost everything is readily available at your fingertips and it's all insanely cheap now.

You like movies, just get a theater sub, it's like $25 a month to see 12 movies a month. Streaming services have almost every episode of nearly everything.

Can you point me to somewhere that I can currently purchase the Wii U game Dr. Luigi?

rick_alverado posted...

Can you point me to somewhere that I can currently purchase the Wii U game Dr. Luigi?

One of the few exceptions to my personal rule.

But almost all piracy is from things readily available.

dummy420 posted...

Because corporations are legally allowed to bribe lawmakers.

So are private citizens, it just takes extra steps.

Because corporations control America. It's why an individual gets punished for littering but a corporation doesn't get punished for polluting, money talks

ssb_yunglink2 posted...

I think thats kind of a limited definition of theft in the modern world

That definition wouldnt even apply to something like identity theft

That doesn't matter with identity theft since identity theft is fraud