You will now pay me compensation for 3 asprin.

I haven't logged in for quite a while but my radar must have subconsciously picked this topic up. Tangible and scarce may not be the best words to use to discuss the topic with. fits the description better. I am pro-private property but the main reason I can't come to terms with calling IP property is that it is non-rivalrous. IP is [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-rival_good]anti-rival. Copyright is a limited-time monopoly right created to make artificial scarcity, hopefully to give someone sufficient time to make a little bit of money before the copyright runs out to encourage creating works.

Copyright is anti-rival. What I'm getting at is that the tragedy of the commons doesn't occur with copying. Actually, the opposite happens with copying, inverse commons. If I plant and care for a fruit tree in the commons and someone else comes along and picks the fruit, I'm deprived of that fruit. All my work was for naught and there is nothing to be done for it. If I manage to purchase my own private property, now the fruit tree is mine and taking the fruit without my permission is theft.

If I formulate an idea and the idea spreads to other people, the spread of the idea does not deprive me of using that idea. If I recorded a song, I can still use that song as often as I like no matter how many people copy it (using their own property.)

Basically what I've reasoned copyright to be is similar to this: A person plants a fruit tree on his property. Fine, no one else is depriving him of his fruit tree. Except that person wanted to plant that fruit tree to sell apples and he thinks too many other people are planting their own fruit trees that are similar to his (some of them are even giving apples to their family and neighbors!) They have their own apples and aren't interested in purchasing his unless he does something to make his apples better, like make apple pie. Copyright in this case would be forbidding other people from planting their own fruit trees using their own property. Copying is not theft in any sense of the word.

Edit: Edited in a link to inverse commons

Dammit...

Do you accept imaginary coconuts?

Only if they are ripe and organic.

Thanks for that info. I must have misread your post, I thought you said piracy without profits is not punishable :)

It doesn't change a thing to be honest. You might get into troubles eventually.
However with the data limits most of the UK providers have you cannot steal too much from the industry :)

To all those "piracy kills the industry" people: watch this presentation
http://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod.html
Not really about games but very enjoyable nevertheless.

I would have responded sooner, but, I was buried in coconuts! Now I feel like a Monty Python moment. *Clip Clop* ahhh. :D

granny, awesome post... i agree with much of what you said.. and I am not a fan of DRM outside of a CD key which doesn't bother me at all. I kinda think of it as a right of passage to use a piece of software. But one doesn't mean i should do another.





I will pose one question though... Is there anyone out there that would not conisiter the copying of any bank record, passwords, Private e-mails, or any other document that you have on your computer, or phone or other electronic device.. And someone took that with out your permission, would that be theft? It didn't cost you any money, Nor did anything leave your possession.

Would you call the police and say... hey someone just copied my stuff,.. or would you say, someone just robbed me? (mind you at this point nothing has been stolen, Nor are you sure it ever would..)

I see what you're saying but I would still consider that a rivalrous resource much like a domain name.

Interesting question.

That is copying (or spying). Not theft. What a person chooses to do with that information may then become theft.

If someone took your little book containing all your passwords, then that would be theft. If someone found your little book containing all your passwords, and in some way made a duplicate, that would be copying.

Yes, I realise this is a distinction most won't care about if/when it happens to them (I know, because nearly two years ago my bank account was somehow compromised, and I used terms like "stole my details" in amongst such phrases as "those mother-fuckers" :-) ). But even so, it's still copying until something actually goes missing.

Misuse of bank records may be entering fraud territory. Copying emails and documents may be considered copyright infringement.

well this is right from the dictionary... i supose you can argue that the dictionary is wrong...
But it sounds an awefull lot like Choice 2... Word's, ect sound an awefull lot like a game, or songs, or video.. ect...



steal
   [steel] Show IPA ,verb, stole, sto·len, steal·ing, noun

verb (used with object)
1.
to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.

2.
to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.

A very convincing and eye-opening response to the OP's argument. Thank you for your contribution.

You're welcome. Of course had you bothered to read further you could have avoided looking like a prat, but you can't win 'em all I suppose.