Piracy staying legal in Switzerland - "Pirates still contribute"

[Dastardly]

And you are once again wrong. "Ownership" and "Copyright" is once again two completely different things.

Ownership means direct ruling over a product. As a consumer, you can have that even with a copyrighted product. If i own a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4 for the PS3, then that copy is MY ownership, and i can legally use it and resell it if i like.

You own the disc, and the information on that disk insofar as it remains on the disc, or installed and used as a single copy in keeping with the license agreement. You can do with the disc whatever you want.

Copyright IS ownership, however. If you hold copyright, you literally own the Right to Copy that item. No one else is allowed to copy it to distribute to other people. They can buy it from you, and then they can do with that copy whatever they want. But if they use it to generate other copies, they are infringing on your ownership of Copy Rights.

You own the disc. The company owns the information, and the rights to copy it. Arguing that it's "not ownership" is just getting into terminology juggling.

Theft resulting in "deprivation" is just one type of stealing, one "method" so to speak. Fraud is another method of stealing. Armed robbery is another method. The problem is there are two different ways to look at stealing, and there is legal precedent for either... but piracy proponents only want to allow one (the more convenient for them):

1. We can define stealing based on what happens to the victim: They are deprived of something that rightfully belonged to them.

2. We can define stealing based on what happens for the criminal: They gain something that someone else rightfully owned.

Piracy fits the second just fine. If you pirate a movie, you are gaining access to that movie without going through the legal channels that ensure reimbursement to the movie's owner. You're getting something that isn't yours and you're getting it without permission or compensation. You're stealing.

It's not "larceny." It's not "robbery." It's not "grand theft auto." It's not necessarily "fraud" (though some cases may include fraud). But it is another method of stealing. The aversion to the word "stealing" is only a function of weak moralizing to attempt to excuse piracy. Seriously, it's like trying to say kidnapping is not "stealing a person" -- that may not be how lawyers phrase it, but it's a perfectly serviceable definition for understand what's going on.

Or, in other terms, it's like someone trying to say only Labradors are dogs, so Chihuahuas aren't dogs. And no, it's not like someone trying to say Labradors are dogs and Penguins (or whatever the hyperbole-animal might be) aren't dogs -- piracy and material theft are more closely related.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

1. We can define stealing based on what happens to the victim: They are deprived of something that rightfully belonged to them.

2. We can define stealing based on what happens for the criminal: They gain something that someone else rightfully owned.

As far as I'm aware, gaining something that someone else rightfully owned is not a category of legal wrong. The closest is restitution law, but that requires that the defendant's gain would have otherwise have been made by the plaintiff. Here's an example of where this applied in a real case: the defendant sold the downloaded software and was required to pay $4mil in restitution.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2006/08/21/daily69.html

 

[chikusho]

Good going Switzerland.

Also, to all the arguments that go along the lines of: "Why would anyone pay when the could get it for free?"

You've never heard about Farmville, have you? That's a game that is basically built upon the piracy framework. You get it for free, you then tell 10 friends about the game, one of which pays for convenience in farmville.
The moral of the story is, the more people experiencing something, the more interest is created for that thing. With more interest, you have more potential customers that considers your product worth purchasing.

Simple math, really.

 

[chikusho]

"since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."

Umm.......that's a pretty flawed statement.

I mean come on, there's absolutely NOTHING stopping them from merely stealing music, films, games and not paying. Piracy is weird.

Funny you would think that, since the statement is true. :S