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Comment by MegaDeKay | Hacker News Reader

From Louis Rossmann on YouTube: "If paying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing."

(shamelessly copied from the top comment on /r/piracy on this very subject)

I'd add that if you paid a price similar to buying a physical copy then it's a stronger case. And most of these digital 'buy' prices have literally no discount compared to a Blu-ray, which is shameless.

When the price is the same you're still getting the short end of the stick when you 'buy' digitally.

Digital license has lower quality video and audio

You cannot re-sell your digital license

You have a non-zero chance that your license will get revoked

also you commonly get a digital license too that you can register with those same digital services when you buy physical anyways (at least for movies/tv shows).

Correct. Copyright infringement is... infringement. Not piracy or stealing.

People treat infringement with more of a Robin Hood mentality than normal stealing since you're copying rather than taking, and because big Intellectual Property Owners all happen to be tax cheats who all do fraudulent accounting to claim their profits all come from their Irish subsidiary yet feel entitled to government enforced monopolies on intellectual property.

You generally get sympathy if you're poor and infringing or being infringed, and don't if you're rich.

It’s never been about whether piracy was stealing or not. It’s about what the courts have to say on the matter. Find yourself on the wrong end of a big copyright case and your life gets ruined, regardless of what word you use to describe it.

> It’s never been about whether piracy was stealing or not. It’s about what the courts have to say on the matter. Find yourself on the wrong end of a big copyright case and your life gets ruined, regardless of what word you use to describe it.

How many individuals have actually had their lives ruined, outside a very small number of people like Alexandra Elbakyan? Plenty of companies have been shutdown over the matter and plenty of scene groups have been raided but ever since Aaron Swartz prosecutors in the US seem to have little appetite for such cases and Europe has always been lenient as far as criminal penalties go. The latest scene group raids that made it to HN's front page ended in 60 day suspended sentences for the offenders which is a complete joke as far as penalties go. Nonviolent offenses that are barely worth prosecuting in most jurisdictions if not for media industry handwringing.

It's a very small number, admittedly, but the damage is huge.

People in general aren't great at dealing with low-probability high-impact events. I think we're also not so great at dealing with legal and economic issues where the effect on most people is tiny but a small number are either affected extremely negatively (by losing these cases) or extremely positively (becoming tremendously wealthy as copyright holders).

I was sued and lost a lot of money. It made my life very difficult at that time and I regret my actions. I did learn a lot about the legal system and the industry, and it inspired me to get a law degree and license, so it wasn’t all for naught.

> If paying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.

I'm stealing that (no pun intended).

You should tell that to the cops after you rent a car and refuse to return it. I’ll make the popcorn.

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