Downloading vs. Shoplifting

Boing Boing relates that you consider the actual possible legal sanctions against you for downloading content from a ripped DVD, you'll run to your local retailer and attempt to steal the thing outright.

Comments

Shawn Smith | February 10, 2005, 7:53pm | #

Cory Doctorow says,

... One has to wonder, then, what kind of crazy society we live in given the relative penalties for infringing a copyright using a computer as compared to stealing an object from a store?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe the same kind of society that locks up drug users longer than murderers.

Shawn Smith | February 10, 2005, 8:06pm | #

I think people make a guess that they are far less likely to get caught downloading a DVD illegally than they are to get caught trying to shoplift a DVD from the local Wal-Mart.

A simple risk times potential cost calculation would probably come out in favor of the downloading, assuming you were the kind of person who would do one of those things, anyway.

Jadagul | February 11, 2005, 5:21am | #

I think, probably, the penalties of law are related not only to the severity of the crime, but also how serious a problem we think it is. If something happens constantly, we try to crack down on it with more enforcment and harsher penalties--think drug laws. It's not that using drugs by itself is quite that bad, but that nothing less seemed to have any effect (yes, I know what we have now has no effect either. If you really think drug use is a serious problem, that may justify ramping the penalties up even more). So the harsher penalties don't say that shoplifting is worse than downloading, but that downloading is a larger problem.

Also, consider the scale...though the law doesn't enshrine this specifically, the penalties for shoplifting a DVD are for one instance of stealing...maybe three, four max? The penalties for downloading mostly get brought in when you've taken tons. I think you can make a case that illegally downloading a couple hundred DVDs and sharing them with others is worse than shoplifting one or two.

Andy | February 11, 2005, 10:51am | #

"I think you can make a case that illegally downloading a couple hundred DVDs and sharing them with others is worse than shoplifting one or two."

I disagree, downloading doesn't cost anybody anything. Saying that every download is a lost sale can be easily disproven. Based on the mp3s I downloaded in the past I actually bought some of the CDs later, which I wouldn't have done otherwise as I'd never heard of the band before. The person uploading the files should have charged the RIAA for freelance marketing costs.

Stealing from a store on the other hand has a material cost to the shop and is therefore theft. I disagree with theft, but I have no issue with downloading.

jimmy | February 11, 2005, 10:51am | #

The one thing i will never understand about Reason is its constant embrace of the theft of intellectual property. Can anyone explain to me why unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material is not theft? Cut the "poor little guy vesrsu big bad record company" crap; you are condoning theft of property (our most fundamental right), and I can't see how any "libertarian" can justify that.

Phil | February 11, 2005, 11:19am | #

I can't see anything in Jeff's post above that defends or even implies defending stealing other people's property. If anything, I think that to the extent Reason and its writers have revealed a position, it's that:

1) They have a problem with the constant rent-seeking going on by the RIAA and the MPAA, by using the government to control, alter or ban technology and business models that might threaten their control of the industries.

2) The penalties for so-called "piracy" are out of all proportion to any actual harm caused to the parties in question.

3) Both the MPAA and RIAA have used the government as a tool to violate others' civil liberties in the name of stopping "piracy."

Andy | February 11, 2005, 11:29am | #

jimmy - I don't see downloading as 'theft' of intellectual property. Theft would be publishing someone elses copyrighted works for commercial gain with no return to the author.

Downloading music is no different to picking up an old newspaper on a train and reading an article or two. In both cases, the author has not benefitted from the sale, but in neither case would I call that copyright theft.

Jadagul | February 11, 2005, 1:44pm | #

Okay, let me rephrase: if you accept the original argument that filesharing is bad, even if it's nowhere near as bad as shoplifting, filesharing 200 times could easily be worse than downloading twice.

Then we get into my friends who have 9000-song collections, of which they paid for maybe 500...