On theft and piracy
mandarine has an excellent post about theft and piracy. It explains what is the difference in simple and clear terms, as well as offers a couple of examples.
My view on piracy is different though. I do consider piracy to be a form of theft. And I do so not because of all those “need to be paid” reasons.
For me, it’s all about respect of copyright (I am mixing up copyright with ownership on purpose). When one creates content (I prefer this term to “intellectual goods” or “intellectual property”, because often those goods or property have nothing intellectual about them, yet are valuable), he (or she for that matter) has the copyright over said creation. That person (or organization for that matter) has the right of saying who and how can use that content.
Piracy disregards that fundamental right. Pirates don’t care what the creator of the content considered as acceptable terms of use and distribution. Until the content is pirated, the content creator has control over his creation (as vague as it may be). After the content is pirated, the content creator loses any control of it.
Right or wrong, this is how I see it.
What’s you stand on theft and piracy?
mandarine wrote:
Indeed I have omitted the whole subject about author’s rights over creative work. I agree any kind of free copy has to guarantee some form of respect for the author’s initial intentions. However, I believe copyright laws are somewhat too restrictive, as an author or an inventor is often not the best person to know and judge of all possible uses and improvements that can be brought to the idea/work. I rather like the idea of copyleft and GPL-like licenses as a good way to ensure respect of author’s work, while freeing the work or the idea for any possible use or improvement.
Posted on 20-Feb-07 at 3:54 pm | Permalink
Leonid Mamchenkov wrote:
mandarine,
personally, I don’t much care how people use my content.
For others, I agree that they aren’t always the best people to judge about the distribution of their creations, but they should have an option to stay in control. They should be able to say “I don’t care about all that free world out there - I want my content to be used this way and that way only”. Even if I won’t be needing this option myself.
Posted on 20-Feb-07 at 4:11 pm | Permalink
Blog of Timur Asaliev » CBN: On Theft And Piracy wrote:
[…] The Cyprus Blog Network has posted an entry about piracy and theft. […]
Posted on 21-Feb-07 at 3:23 pm | Permalink