this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Piracy isn't stealing anyway
They call it stealing because the real legal term is unlawful copying or reproducing without copyright permits, and that sounds closer to a misdemeanor.
If we claim someone has stolen thousands of songs causing millions of dolars in damages it does look like a felony, and that is the way they've chosen to scare us.
An even funnier premise in the streaming era, where artists get paid like $0.005 per stream. You’d have to rack up 20,000 plays across these “stolen” songs before it “costs” the artist $100
I feel the same way about people applying terms like "theft" to events of intellectual property misuse like copying another artist's art style, reusing another comedian's jokes, etc. Those things are problems of their own, but should not be called "theft".
when people do it, it's interpretation - it's only theft if they're portraying themselves as the original artist, trying to leverage someone else's work for profit.
now, when machines do the same thing, I think that very much is theft and should be illegal.
Gatekeeping technology is a personal irritation of mine.
The famicom and capacitor electrolytes should not belong to individual companies, they belong to all of humanity.
Not that I agree with the following, but I feel like many say piracy is theft because one is "stealing" potential income, not stealing the material itself. I vaguely remember someone on YouTube even said using Adblock is akin to piracy, as one is watching content without paying for it (and the assumption is one should pay)
The baristas watching me steal the coffee i just paid $8 for because I didn’t tip 18% when prompted
/jk