Concert would be something like theft of service. Lights, etc, aren’t free.

Copying something is nothing more than copyright infringement, period.

Calling it stealing is disingenuous, at best.

“Stealing” requires a tangible item which would otherwise be sold.

Take someone to court and charge them with theft for copying a CD, and see how fast the judge throws it out (hint: it would never make it before a judge).

Depends on how you define stealing.

Stealing is theft, or in US law larceny, which is very clearly defined. Copying does not meet this definition, hence why copyright infringement is a separate offense.

Theft is a crime, copyright infringement is a civil offense (except commercial copyright infringement, which can be reached if the value exceeds $1,000 - lobbyists worked hard to criminalise what normal citizens were doing and had success in this point, while they still get away with fleecing everyone, both artists and end users).

There’s nothing morally wrong with the hypothetical concert goer in my opinion. Maybe my opinion is radical but i don’t think there’s any morality in buying things either.

Hell i’ll go a step further! I think unless you’re stealing from a fellow citizen take that shit bro/sis. Ill cheer you on.

Too much wage theft out there for me to give a fuck about some kid stealing a PlayStation from a walmart

Depends on how you define stealing.

Well you should probably use the actual definition. Copying information is never stealing. Whether or not piracy is ethical is a debate you can engage in if you want, but either way, it's still not theft. Words have meanings.

Depends on how you define stealing.

Pirates love to use a definition of "theft" that puts the entire definition on the victim, instead of their own actions. They use definitions like "depriving the original owner", instead of "taking what doesn't belong to them".

They still have the right to distribute it. It’s not like reddit, who not only claim the right but also apparently claim ownership of any content you publish there, while providing no consideration (payment) in return.

However, as you say, they have the right to deny you, and by copying you are subverting their rights. That’s still not theft, though, which is why copyright infringement is a separate offense.

Theft is a crime, copyright infringement is a civil matter.

The “right to control distribution” is utterly unenforceable in a world with computers and the internet. The only way to enforce that right is to have centralized institutions with absolute control over every computer.

I can understand a need for controlling personal information in order to protect the user privacy. I can even get behind the idea of having to control dangerous information, like schematics for nuclear weapon systems. I do not support the idea of moving towards a world where the NSA has a rootkit on every computer because capitalism can’t be bothered that artists make enough to eat.

Maybe there is an inherent problem with a social system in which so many people struggle to make a living. And maybe the solution isn’t to create artificial scarcity in computer systems where information can be shared freely.

That right is something they should not have. Streaming services greenlight shows, get them made, then cancel them after two seasons to prevent artists getting residuals.

Then if they lose popularity they pull them off the site and even the people who worked on them can’t see them anymore. Animators have to rely on piracy just to show people their own portfolio. That’s where respecting copyright leads.

The copyright owner is just whoever fronted the money, and the only reason we’ve decided they “own” anything is because people with money have decided money should be the most important thing in our society.

The problem is that when everyone is using their right to deny access to their works to make people give them money, and there is only so much money you can reasonably spend on entertainment and so on per month, people end up abstaining from a lot of things they could otherwise have taken part in for no extra cost.

I think that the things we pirate have a value: music, movies and games have a value because they are cultural products and vulture is important, software like photoshop has a value because it is a useful tool. Putting up barriers to accessing these things means destroying this value. Having a system where the main way to make money of e.g. music is to paywall it has the “destruction” of a lot of value as its outcome. In some ways streaming platforms like spotify are better in this regard but then that means giving the platform a lot of power over music discovery for example. Spotify doesn’t really do a good job of paying its artists either which is its supposed ethical advantage over piracy.

This is one of the few actually interesting counterpoints to piracy. The rights of the artist for the use of their work is a very nuanced topic. For instance, most people would say that parody and satire are very important forms of expression that ought to be protected. But those often dance the line of “infringement” in the eyes of the courts.

On the other hand, it feels wrong to say that an artist has to accept their work being used for evil purposes, like a group of neo-nazis using an open source font in their propaganda materials, or a group of religious extremists using a musician’s backing track in their efforts to convert people.

I lean pretty strongly for the rights of the consumers of art to do with it what they want, but I admit it gives me pause on some of the edge cases. Very complicated issue.

Devil’s advocate: “If you copy it, the [original] owner doesn’t lose anything…”

They loose the right to distribute it or not distribute it to who they choose.

They already lost that right when they gave their product over to a licensor or distributor. Especially more in some industries such as book publishing.

Lol, love hearing this moronic argument. If you had the magical ability to point at an object and clone it out of thin air, that also wouldn’t be stealing.

If I pointed at a Rolex on a person’s wrist and magically an identical copy of that watch appeared on my wrist, nothing was stolen, because nobody was deprived of anything. The net amount of that thing in the world only increased, and nobody was dispossessed of their property.

I hope you’ve never walked past a concert venue and heard some of the music being performed without being in the venue, otherwise by your logic, you are literally a thief who robbed that artist of their intellectual property and should be arrested and imprisoned. At the very least, made to pay restitution to the artist and record company for the cost of the music you “stole” from them.

Miss me with that bullshit.