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Question of the Day: Have you ever ordered a product online and received a fake knock-off?
Is online piracy theft?
- Thread starter rpm
- Start date
I like that hahahaha... case closed! lol
Copyrights, patents and trademarks are all broken, perverted from their intended purpose and they've become that way, will stay that way, because powerful, wealthy vested interests want it that way.
It remains and will always remain ludicrous to compare physical goods to things that are not physical. Someone copying a piece of music, a movie or some software can never be sensibly compared to someone taking a physical good.
But if we are going to pretend they're the same then products like software must come with exactly the same rights and guarantees as physical goods. It must perform or you get a refund. You must be able to simply change your mind and return it for a refund, even if it has been opened. That's where the problem lies. The promoters of this nonsense want all the benefits of pretending these things are physical goods, plus additional special benefits and none of the consumer benefits that go with physical goods.
If it's theft to watch a movie without paying for it, then inviting friends over to watch something you bought is also theft because they've failed to pay. So is lending and borrowing. And of course buying pre-owned.
It remains and will always remain ludicrous to compare physical goods to things that are not physical. Someone copying a piece of music, a movie or some software can never be sensibly compared to someone taking a physical good.
But if we are going to pretend they're the same then products like software must come with exactly the same rights and guarantees as physical goods. It must perform or you get a refund. You must be able to simply change your mind and return it for a refund, even if it has been opened. That's where the problem lies. The promoters of this nonsense want all the benefits of pretending these things are physical goods, plus additional special benefits and none of the consumer benefits that go with physical goods.
If the product's not selling, then that is what would happen. That would include the case where they're buying a competitor's product instead. Is the competitor now a thief too? How many examples are there of companies going out of business because everyone used, but didn't buy their product? We have to always ask whether they would really have bought anyway. There's obviously something seriously wrong if you really have a situation where essentially 100% of your potential customers won't pay for your product. I've known people to use a lower quality, but easier to copy product, perhaps given away free, over a better, but harder to copy one. If they had to pay they'd buy the better one, so now is the producer putting out the easy to copy or free product contributing to theft from the better company?
If it's theft to watch a movie without paying for it, then inviting friends over to watch something you bought is also theft because they've failed to pay. So is lending and borrowing. And of course buying pre-owned.
