Everyone arguing that itâs not stealing is making the claim that it has no value.
Are you trying to conflate âvalueâ with âextractive market valueâ? There are lots of things that have innate value but have no or very little market value.
Why does it matter? I would consider it moral and ethical but have no care whether itâs a legal one.
It matters if anyone cares to understand what youâre actually asserting, since youâve again claimed âI am only arguing against the mischaracterization and dishonesty of claiming that it is not stealingâ. How can anyone understand what you mean without knowing what you take âstealingâ to mean, and why it matters?
Most people here would argue that a system that relies on exclusive ownership of ideas/digitally reproducible data in order to support those who do that labor (that we all benefit from) is one that is broken. In which case âstealingâ would be misplacing both to whom the harm being done and the party doing the harm, because it isnât the fault of the artist or the consumer that the system withholds the means of living from those who are unable to justify their existence through labor.
Thatâs all irrelevant. Iâm not making some hypothetical point. Whether you agree with âthe systemâ or not, it is the system within which we live and operate and within which people need to make a living. It doesnât matter whose fault it is. What matters is that someone is being deprived of something by someone who found value in a thing that the person created. If we accept that and attempt to justify as anything other than theft, then those people will cease to create themselves or will have to work further into the system that youâre arguing against as they will be unable to sustain themselves by creating things within that system.
If you want people to make more of the things you like, you have to pay them for those things. All the straw man arguments about DRM and corporations that attempt to justify piracy only further reinforce the current system rather than some imagined system.
Stealing has a definition. It means that youâre taking something from someone. If you canât understand âstealingâ in its most basic form, then thereâs no point in having a further discussion with you because youâre only pretending not to understand to justify behavior that benefits you.
âPiracy is stealingâ certainly seems to be a statement of fault, doesnât it?
What matters is that someone is being deprived of something by someone who found value in a thing that the person created.
No, that someone is being deprived of something in the first instance by being made to justify their existence through their labor. That someone isnât willing to pay for that labor is only depriving them in the second instance, and there are innumerable examples where essential labor is uncompensated in our market system.
If you want people to make more of the things you like, you have to pay them for those things.
That is not a given. I happen to think that by returning the time that was stolen from us (or some portion thereof) by coercing us into labor, we can all be free to create what we want. Forcing art to abide by the rules of the free market only serves to corrupt it, not enable it to sustain itself.
Stealing has a definition. It means that youâre taking something from someone.
Stealing actually has a bunch of definitions, and most of them depend upon the abstract concept of âpropertyâ.
thereâs no point in having a further discussion with you because youâre only pretending not to understand to justify behavior that benefits you.
I was saying that it doesnât matter whose fault it is to your assertion that âitâs not the creators or the consumersâ fault. Piracy does have a person thatâs at fault and, logically, itâs the person getting something for free that is not being offered for free.
Iâm not talking about anyone justifying their existence through labor. Youâre arguing a straw man. Iâm stating that creators make something with the intent to get paid for that thing. Their motivation for why theyâre doing so (whether itâs to participate in the system, âjustify their existenceâ, personal gratification, or otherwise) is irrelevant to the argument being made. Having numerable instances where people are uncompensated doesnât justify those situations anymore than it justifies this one.
Everything else you said about artists is all well and good and entirely meaningless to the people who canât afford to pay their bills because they have no choice but to live within the market that they do. Of course Iâd be happy if we lived in a Star Trekian utopia where money doesnât matter anymore but we donât and pirating content that people make isnât going to change that.
All Iâm arguing is that itâs dishonest to suggest that piracy is not stealing when the entire proposition of piracy is an entitlement to be able to consume something without paying for it. That is stealing by any stretch of the imagination. Whether youâre watching a movie without paying for it, using a website that someone built for you that you didnât pay for, or having sex with a prostitute who you refuse to pay⊠itâs all stealing.
Iâm not talking about anyone justifying their existence through labor. Youâre arguing a straw man. Iâm stating that creators make something with the intent to get paid for that thing. Their motivation for why theyâre doing so (whether itâs to participate in the system, âjustify their existenceâ, personal gratification, or otherwise) is irrelevant to the argument being made. Having numerable instances where people are uncompensated doesnât justify those situations anymore than it justifies this one.
Everything else you said about artists is all well and good and entirely meaningless to the people who canât afford to pay their bills because they have no choice but to live within the market that they do.
Except it isnât, because youâre arguing they deserve to be paid because otherwise they canât afford to pay their bills. Youâve made it explicitly relevant.
All Iâm arguing is that itâs dishonest to suggest that piracy is not stealing when the entire proposition of piracy is an entitlement to be able to consume something without paying for it.
And iâm saying itâs dishonest to suggest that piracy is stealing when the entire proposition of digital copyright is an entitlement to be able to extract currency from something thatâs infinitely reproducible by denying access to it.
That is stealing by any stretch of the imagination. Whether youâre watching a movie without paying for it, using a website that someone built for you that you didnât pay for, or having sex with a prostitute who you refuse to pay⊠itâs all stealing.
Where to start with this oneâŠ
âwatching a movie without paying for itâ: like renting a movie from a library? sharing a dvd with a friend? time and format-shifting a dvd youâve bought? plenty of legal examples here that are inconsistent with what youâre saying
âusing a website that someone built for you that you didnât pay forâ: this is a weird one, since âusing a website that someone built without paying for itâ is exactly how the internet works now⊠Unless you mean stiffing a contractor you had an agreement with?
âhaving sex with a prostitute who you refuse to payâ: another weird and grotesque example⊠but I think conceptually the same as the website example? Stiffing a contractor?
âThat is stealing by any stretch of the imaginationâ: and it is quite a stretch (youâve misused this turn-of-phrase)
No, thatâs not what Iâm arguing. Iâm arguing that they deserve to be paid because theyâre asking to be paid for their work rather than giving it away for free. Their reasons for wanting to get paid are irrelevant. They are not offering the product of their labor for free. Full stop. Why theyâre doing that doesnât matter.
the entire proposition of digital copyright is an entitlement to be able to extract currency from something thatâs infinitely reproducible by denying access to it.
Iâm not talking about copyright, though! Copyright is a legal concept defined by lawmakers. Iâm not focusing on the legality of piracy at all. I donât care if itâs legal or not and I donât care about the copyright. Iâm simply arguing that people create things and expect to get paid for them. They donât create them to give them away for free unless theyâve explicitly decided to do that.
watching a movie without paying for itâ: like renting a movie from a library? sharing a dvd with a friend? time and format-shifting a dvd youâve bought? plenty of legal examples here that are inconsistent with what youâre saying
watching a movie without paying for itâ: like renting a movie from a library? sharing a dvd with a friend? time and format-shifting a dvd youâve bought? plenty of legal examples here that are inconsistent with what youâre saying
Libraries have to get permission from creators to carry intangible goods. Libraries do not and cannot just buy media and offer it for consumption without permission, especially for digital media that is intangible. Sharing a DVD with a friend is a tangible good and therefore has physical limitations that intangible media does not so it is not the same. And, again, Iâm not arguing about the legal implications of any of this so whether or not other things are legal or not is irrelevant.
âusing a website that someone built for you that you didnât pay forâ: this is a weird one, since âusing a website that someone built without paying for itâ is exactly how the internet works now⊠Unless you mean stiffing a contractor you had an agreement with?
Stiffing a contractor is exactly what I mean. The person that created your website. The person that created the intangible good that you seem to be arguing is just fine to copy indefinitely without paying that person for their time (again, unless theyâve explicitly granted its free use).
âhaving sex with a prostitute who you refuse to payâ: another weird and grotesque example⊠but I think conceptually the same as the website example? Stiffing a contractor?
Why is that a weird and/or grotesque example? Sex workers are people and provide a service. So, yesâŠstiffing a contractor.
âThat is stealing by any stretch of the imaginationâ: and it is quite a stretch (youâve misused this turn-of-phrase)
Ok? I donât think I did but does that really matter? The point still stands whether I used the idiom correctly or not.
theyâre asking to be paid for their work rather than giving it away for free
If I spend months intricately painting my car with the expectation of being paid, am i justified in asking to be paid for you looking at it? Am I justified in accusing you of theft if you take a picture of it as I drive by? If you share it with all your friends? If I post an elaborate tiktok and say, âif you viewed this please pay me $5â, can I accuse you of theft if you donât?
At what point does a desire to be paid for creative work become an obligation on the part of those who consume it? By what natural law is a creator granted exclusive right to the consumption and distribution of that intangible work?
Them expecting to be paid has no bearing on the moral or ethical obligation for me to do so. Theyâre asking to be paid for something that is by nature freely available and infinitely sharable. That doesnât make something theft, especially not legally (which I now understand is not your point)
The most you could argue is for a social obligation (i.e. you ought to pay for things you benefit from), but that wouldnât amount to fucking theft. If thatâs the point youâre making, then itâs disingenuous to refer to piracy as stealing.
And, again, Iâm not arguing about the legal implications of any of this so whether or not other things are legal or not is irrelevant.
Great, that simplifies things.
Stiffing a contractor is exactly what I mean. The person that created your website. The person that created the intangible good that you seem to be arguing is just fine to copy indefinitely without paying that person for their time (again, unless theyâve explicitly granted its free use).
Youâre talking about selling labor under contract, not consuming or sharing an intangible good freely. By the quote I shared, an idea [or intangible work] is exclusively yours until you decide to divulge it. Once you share it, it is no longer yours. A better example is if I pay you for your time to make me a website, and then someone else copies the HTML from the site after I publish it (as with most piracy, the person youâre hurting isnât the creator but the IP owner, which is usually not the creator). Your time has been paid for already, and trying to limit access to that work after the fact is simply an abuse of some abstract ownership over something that canât really be stolen. Anyone is free to support the work they enjoy, but saying that itâs an ethical obligation that amounts to theft if ignored is simply not a given.
Itâs the same with the sex worker, except thereâs no intangible product of the work a prostitute does thatâs infinitely reproducible⊠that example seems to have been included specifically for the emotional weight that work elicits, since it doesnât appear to be relevant to your point.
The problem is that in our current system, absent being paid for your labor or exclusive ownership to goods or capital needed by others, you canât sustain yourself. Thatâs a relevant condition to what I think about someone copying the work I produce, not an irrelevant deflection. Additionally, the motivation to do the work changes how someone might feel about it being shared: if you only have to do work you like to do and believe in, and not for any financial obligation, doesnât it change the emotional appeal youâre making from the point of view of the creator? And the collective benefit for making those creations freely available would outweigh any concern about obligatory compensation or abstract ownership.
Absent those conditions, the ethical conclusion youâre trying to make wouldnât be applicable by any stretch of the imagination.
If I spend months intricately painting my car with the expectation of being paid
You cannot force someone to pay for something that is displayed in public. If you took that car that you intricately painted and locked it in a garage and charged an admission fee to look at it, then, yes, you are justified. If you are driving it in public, everything else about what you say is invalidated - no, you are not justified in accusing someone of theft regardless of what happens after that. You gave up the right to that when you drove it publicly.
At what point does a desire to be paid for creative work become an obligation on the part of those who consume it?
At the point of its creation. Otherwise, youâre making the argument that everyone is entitled to anything anyone creates from the moment itâs created.
Theyâre asking to be paid for something that is by nature freely available and infinitely sharable.
This is the flaw in this argument. It is not freely available unless the creator is giving it to people freely. Most creators who make their content do not give it away freely.
Youâre talking about selling labor under contract, not consuming or sharing an intangible good freely. By the quote I shared, an idea [or intangible work] is exclusively yours until you decide to divulge it. Once you share it, it is no longer yours.
Then, to be clear, youâre ok with someone stealing the work someone else made instead of paying you to do it at your job? If youâre a programmer, youâre ok with your boss just stealing someone elseâs work if it does the job youâre being asked to do?
thereâs no intangible product of the work a prostitute does
This is not true. The prostitute loses nothing that he/she had when they started the work and can continue to provide that same product to any number of people after they are done providing it to you. To borrow from your descriptions of pirated content, her product is infinitely reproducible and freely available (so long as sheâs been paid for it, right?).
The problem is that in our current system
âŠand then you continue to make a claim for a situation that is not possible in our current system which makes it irrelevant.
Yes, in a fantasy Star Trekian utopia where money doesnât matter and people donât need money to survive, I would love for creators to make art just because thatâs what theyâre passionate about. Iâm not arguing that fantasy, Iâm arguing reality.
At the point of its creation. Otherwise, youâre making the argument that everyone is entitled to anything anyone creates from the moment itâs created.
Nope, iâm making the argument that ownership ends when a work is shared publicly, not when itâs created.
This is the flaw in this argument. It is not freely available unless the creator is giving it to people freely. Most creators who make their content do not give it away freely.
By itâs nature, digital media is unrestricted, it costs nothing to reproduce and so cannot be âstolenâ from someone because doing so doesnât take it away from them. That was Thomas Jeffersonâs point; ideas have no natural property of exclusive ownership because they can spread and propagate at no cost. Different from labor, which is finite since itâs limited by time. Digital media is only restricted as an artificial means of extracting value from that limitation. But even then, thereâs no reasonable expectation of control once that work is shared publicly because there are no physical boundaries that encapsulate it, no means to control its propagation once it departs from its origin. Thatâs what I mean by âitâs nature is freely accessible and infinitely reproducibleâ.
Then, to be clear, youâre ok with someone stealing the work someone else made instead of paying you to do it at your job? If youâre a programmer, youâre ok with your boss just stealing someone elseâs work if it does the job youâre being asked to do?
As a matter of principle, absolutely. I donât blame someone from reusing my creative work, I blame those who own and restrict my means of living from me in the first place, and I blame the people who take ownership of that creative work and restrict access to it in order to produce a profit that they withhold from me and those that labor to produce it. It would be far more efficient if we didnât require problems to be solved over and over again, and far more efficient if the accumulation of capital didnât further alienate creators from their work. It is exactly the concept of ownership that limits creative work, not piracy.
The prostitute loses nothing that he/she had when they started the work and can continue to provide that same product to any number of people after they are done providing it to you.
THAT ISNâT TRUE. They loose their TIME and that time is finite and discrete. The work they do in that time isnât something that can be copied. Youâre intentionally conflating labor and ownership and copyright (I am very explicitly using copyright here because that is what we are discussing, which is the RIGHT TO RESTRICT COPIES of a given work by the owner of the copyright). I paint a piece of art; the act of painting is the labor, the piece of art is the product. A prostitute is a service worker, they donât produce a tangible product, THEIR LABOR IS THE PRODUCT. Every time the work is copied their time and effort are lost. Once digital media is produced, that media can be copied indefinitely at NO MATERIAL COST TO THE CREATOR.
Yes, in a fantasy Star Trekian utopia where money doesnât matter and people donât need money to survive, I would love for creators to make art just because thatâs what theyâre passionate about. Iâm not arguing that fantasy, Iâm arguing reality.
UBI isnât a star trek fantasy. Public domain isnât fantasy. You can close your eyes to what already exists all you want, but you canât insist âpiracy is stealingâ without confronting the reality that it depends on the illusion of ownership.
Ok? I donât think I did but does that really matter? The point still stands whether I used the idiom correctly or not.
Yes, that does matter. That would be the whole point of the idiom.
For example if I tried to argue a king can command the tide, and then used King Canute and the tide to prove my point, I would not only be not making my point stand but also confusing the crap out of everyone.
Are you trying to conflate âvalueâ with âextractive market valueâ? There are lots of things that have innate value but have no or very little market value.
It matters if anyone cares to understand what youâre actually asserting, since youâve again claimed âI am only arguing against the mischaracterization and dishonesty of claiming that it is not stealingâ. How can anyone understand what you mean without knowing what you take âstealingâ to mean, and why it matters?
Most people here would argue that a system that relies on exclusive ownership of ideas/digitally reproducible data in order to support those who do that labor (that we all benefit from) is one that is broken. In which case âstealingâ would be misplacing both to whom the harm being done and the party doing the harm, because it isnât the fault of the artist or the consumer that the system withholds the means of living from those who are unable to justify their existence through labor.
Thatâs all irrelevant. Iâm not making some hypothetical point. Whether you agree with âthe systemâ or not, it is the system within which we live and operate and within which people need to make a living. It doesnât matter whose fault it is. What matters is that someone is being deprived of something by someone who found value in a thing that the person created. If we accept that and attempt to justify as anything other than theft, then those people will cease to create themselves or will have to work further into the system that youâre arguing against as they will be unable to sustain themselves by creating things within that system.
If you want people to make more of the things you like, you have to pay them for those things. All the straw man arguments about DRM and corporations that attempt to justify piracy only further reinforce the current system rather than some imagined system.
Stealing has a definition. It means that youâre taking something from someone. If you canât understand âstealingâ in its most basic form, then thereâs no point in having a further discussion with you because youâre only pretending not to understand to justify behavior that benefits you.
âPiracy is stealingâ certainly seems to be a statement of fault, doesnât it?
No, that someone is being deprived of something in the first instance by being made to justify their existence through their labor. That someone isnât willing to pay for that labor is only depriving them in the second instance, and there are innumerable examples where essential labor is uncompensated in our market system.
That is not a given. I happen to think that by returning the time that was stolen from us (or some portion thereof) by coercing us into labor, we can all be free to create what we want. Forcing art to abide by the rules of the free market only serves to corrupt it, not enable it to sustain itself.
Stealing actually has a bunch of definitions, and most of them depend upon the abstract concept of âpropertyâ.
Finally something we can agree on.
I was saying that it doesnât matter whose fault it is to your assertion that âitâs not the creators or the consumersâ fault. Piracy does have a person thatâs at fault and, logically, itâs the person getting something for free that is not being offered for free.
Iâm not talking about anyone justifying their existence through labor. Youâre arguing a straw man. Iâm stating that creators make something with the intent to get paid for that thing. Their motivation for why theyâre doing so (whether itâs to participate in the system, âjustify their existenceâ, personal gratification, or otherwise) is irrelevant to the argument being made. Having numerable instances where people are uncompensated doesnât justify those situations anymore than it justifies this one.
Everything else you said about artists is all well and good and entirely meaningless to the people who canât afford to pay their bills because they have no choice but to live within the market that they do. Of course Iâd be happy if we lived in a Star Trekian utopia where money doesnât matter anymore but we donât and pirating content that people make isnât going to change that.
All Iâm arguing is that itâs dishonest to suggest that piracy is not stealing when the entire proposition of piracy is an entitlement to be able to consume something without paying for it. That is stealing by any stretch of the imagination. Whether youâre watching a movie without paying for it, using a website that someone built for you that you didnât pay for, or having sex with a prostitute who you refuse to pay⊠itâs all stealing.
Except it isnât, because youâre arguing they deserve to be paid because otherwise they canât afford to pay their bills. Youâve made it explicitly relevant.
And iâm saying itâs dishonest to suggest that piracy is stealing when the entire proposition of digital copyright is an entitlement to be able to extract currency from something thatâs infinitely reproducible by denying access to it.
Where to start with this oneâŠ
No, thatâs not what Iâm arguing. Iâm arguing that they deserve to be paid because theyâre asking to be paid for their work rather than giving it away for free. Their reasons for wanting to get paid are irrelevant. They are not offering the product of their labor for free. Full stop. Why theyâre doing that doesnât matter.
Iâm not talking about copyright, though! Copyright is a legal concept defined by lawmakers. Iâm not focusing on the legality of piracy at all. I donât care if itâs legal or not and I donât care about the copyright. Iâm simply arguing that people create things and expect to get paid for them. They donât create them to give them away for free unless theyâve explicitly decided to do that.
Libraries have to get permission from creators to carry intangible goods. Libraries do not and cannot just buy media and offer it for consumption without permission, especially for digital media that is intangible. Sharing a DVD with a friend is a tangible good and therefore has physical limitations that intangible media does not so it is not the same. And, again, Iâm not arguing about the legal implications of any of this so whether or not other things are legal or not is irrelevant.
Stiffing a contractor is exactly what I mean. The person that created your website. The person that created the intangible good that you seem to be arguing is just fine to copy indefinitely without paying that person for their time (again, unless theyâve explicitly granted its free use).
Why is that a weird and/or grotesque example? Sex workers are people and provide a service. So, yesâŠstiffing a contractor.
Ok? I donât think I did but does that really matter? The point still stands whether I used the idiom correctly or not.
If I spend months intricately painting my car with the expectation of being paid, am i justified in asking to be paid for you looking at it? Am I justified in accusing you of theft if you take a picture of it as I drive by? If you share it with all your friends? If I post an elaborate tiktok and say, âif you viewed this please pay me $5â, can I accuse you of theft if you donât?
At what point does a desire to be paid for creative work become an obligation on the part of those who consume it? By what natural law is a creator granted exclusive right to the consumption and distribution of that intangible work?
Them expecting to be paid has no bearing on the moral or ethical obligation for me to do so. Theyâre asking to be paid for something that is by nature freely available and infinitely sharable. That doesnât make something theft, especially not legally (which I now understand is not your point)
The most you could argue is for a social obligation (i.e. you ought to pay for things you benefit from), but that wouldnât amount to fucking theft. If thatâs the point youâre making, then itâs disingenuous to refer to piracy as stealing.
Great, that simplifies things.
Youâre talking about selling labor under contract, not consuming or sharing an intangible good freely. By the quote I shared, an idea [or intangible work] is exclusively yours until you decide to divulge it. Once you share it, it is no longer yours. A better example is if I pay you for your time to make me a website, and then someone else copies the HTML from the site after I publish it (as with most piracy, the person youâre hurting isnât the creator but the IP owner, which is usually not the creator). Your time has been paid for already, and trying to limit access to that work after the fact is simply an abuse of some abstract ownership over something that canât really be stolen. Anyone is free to support the work they enjoy, but saying that itâs an ethical obligation that amounts to theft if ignored is simply not a given.
Itâs the same with the sex worker, except thereâs no intangible product of the work a prostitute does thatâs infinitely reproducible⊠that example seems to have been included specifically for the emotional weight that work elicits, since it doesnât appear to be relevant to your point.
The problem is that in our current system, absent being paid for your labor or exclusive ownership to goods or capital needed by others, you canât sustain yourself. Thatâs a relevant condition to what I think about someone copying the work I produce, not an irrelevant deflection. Additionally, the motivation to do the work changes how someone might feel about it being shared: if you only have to do work you like to do and believe in, and not for any financial obligation, doesnât it change the emotional appeal youâre making from the point of view of the creator? And the collective benefit for making those creations freely available would outweigh any concern about obligatory compensation or abstract ownership.
Absent those conditions, the ethical conclusion youâre trying to make wouldnât be applicable by any stretch of the imagination.
This is all a nonsense argument.
You cannot force someone to pay for something that is displayed in public. If you took that car that you intricately painted and locked it in a garage and charged an admission fee to look at it, then, yes, you are justified. If you are driving it in public, everything else about what you say is invalidated - no, you are not justified in accusing someone of theft regardless of what happens after that. You gave up the right to that when you drove it publicly.
At the point of its creation. Otherwise, youâre making the argument that everyone is entitled to anything anyone creates from the moment itâs created.
This is the flaw in this argument. It is not freely available unless the creator is giving it to people freely. Most creators who make their content do not give it away freely.
Then, to be clear, youâre ok with someone stealing the work someone else made instead of paying you to do it at your job? If youâre a programmer, youâre ok with your boss just stealing someone elseâs work if it does the job youâre being asked to do?
This is not true. The prostitute loses nothing that he/she had when they started the work and can continue to provide that same product to any number of people after they are done providing it to you. To borrow from your descriptions of pirated content, her product is infinitely reproducible and freely available (so long as sheâs been paid for it, right?).
âŠand then you continue to make a claim for a situation that is not possible in our current system which makes it irrelevant.
Yes, in a fantasy Star Trekian utopia where money doesnât matter and people donât need money to survive, I would love for creators to make art just because thatâs what theyâre passionate about. Iâm not arguing that fantasy, Iâm arguing reality.
Nope, iâm making the argument that ownership ends when a work is shared publicly, not when itâs created.
By itâs nature, digital media is unrestricted, it costs nothing to reproduce and so cannot be âstolenâ from someone because doing so doesnât take it away from them. That was Thomas Jeffersonâs point; ideas have no natural property of exclusive ownership because they can spread and propagate at no cost. Different from labor, which is finite since itâs limited by time. Digital media is only restricted as an artificial means of extracting value from that limitation. But even then, thereâs no reasonable expectation of control once that work is shared publicly because there are no physical boundaries that encapsulate it, no means to control its propagation once it departs from its origin. Thatâs what I mean by âitâs nature is freely accessible and infinitely reproducibleâ.
As a matter of principle, absolutely. I donât blame someone from reusing my creative work, I blame those who own and restrict my means of living from me in the first place, and I blame the people who take ownership of that creative work and restrict access to it in order to produce a profit that they withhold from me and those that labor to produce it. It would be far more efficient if we didnât require problems to be solved over and over again, and far more efficient if the accumulation of capital didnât further alienate creators from their work. It is exactly the concept of ownership that limits creative work, not piracy.
THAT ISNâT TRUE. They loose their TIME and that time is finite and discrete. The work they do in that time isnât something that can be copied. Youâre intentionally conflating labor and ownership and copyright (I am very explicitly using copyright here because that is what we are discussing, which is the RIGHT TO RESTRICT COPIES of a given work by the owner of the copyright). I paint a piece of art; the act of painting is the labor, the piece of art is the product. A prostitute is a service worker, they donât produce a tangible product, THEIR LABOR IS THE PRODUCT. Every time the work is copied their time and effort are lost. Once digital media is produced, that media can be copied indefinitely at NO MATERIAL COST TO THE CREATOR.
UBI isnât a star trek fantasy. Public domain isnât fantasy. You can close your eyes to what already exists all you want, but you canât insist âpiracy is stealingâ without confronting the reality that it depends on the illusion of ownership.
Yes, that does matter. That would be the whole point of the idiom.
For example if I tried to argue a king can command the tide, and then used King Canute and the tide to prove my point, I would not only be not making my point stand but also confusing the crap out of everyone.
You seemed to grasp the point so, no, it doesnât really matter.