If you want to get into the philosophical side of things, then there are some areas where the law seems to be totally unreasonable...
(The tricky part is that, if the definition of the word "steal" changes, then "Thou shalt not steal" can become a bit of a grey area.)
For example, when you buy an LP, you are supposedly paying for "the plastic", and "the license to listen to the music".
And, if I were to steal your album out of your living room, the meaning would be quite obvious.
However, if you were to make a pirated copy, "the authorities" would immediately claim that what you stole was the cost of the record (so, since you stole the license, but not the plastic, they're saying that the license is worth the total price).
But, if you buy a CD of that exact same album, they still expect you to pay full price (so now they're saying the license you bought when you bought the LP album is worthless).
Even though, since you already paid for the license, it seems to make sense that you should be able to pay
ONLY for the piece of plastic.
And, if most of the value in your CD is the license, if you break the plastic, the license is still intact, so you
SHOULD be able to put the pieces in an envelope, mail them in, and get a new copy
FOR THE PRICE OF THE PIECE OF PLASTIC.
If you follow the logic, it seems as if they want to claim that
BOTH the piece of plastic
AND the license are
EACH worth the total price - which sort of adds up to 200%.
However, while it changes from time to time, ad can seem both confusing and occasionally totally unreasonable, the law is what it is - until somebody changes it.
For example, it
USED TO BE absolutely legal to make a backup copy of music or video you own on your server; since the DMCA, in 2000, it is now/again technically illegal to decrypt video content, even for your own use.
(Note that the DMCA is based on the encryption; it does
NOT apply to audio CDs, which aren't encrypted; it applies to all Blu-Ray discs, because they're all encrypted; but only
SOME DVDs are protected by encryption.)
THE PRACTICAL REALITIES:
- Technicalities aside, people
DO in fact get prosecuted somewhat regularly for selling pirated music and videos (in physical forms).
- However, you rarely hear about someone being prosecuted for buying a bootleg DVD.
- And people absolutely
DO get prosecuted somewhat regularly for
SELLING pirated content online.
- And people absolutely
DO, at least sometimes, get prosecuted simply for giving away illegal content online.
(Although, from what I hear, the traditional "nasty Cease and Desist letter" is more typical for a first offense.)
- And people do
OCCASIONALLY get prosecuted or fined even for downloading bootleg content.
(This usually involves using a service like BitTorrent, which involves both downloading and uploading at the same time, and makes the whole process somewhat easy to spot and track.)
(I should also note that there absolutely
ARE "watchdog services" who are being paid to track this stuff; if you download
CERTAIN SONGS by
CERTAIN GROUPS using BitTorrent, they
WILL complain to your ISP, who
WILL send you a warning e-mail.)
- However, I have never personally read or heard of anyone being prosecuted for copying content which they own onto a server which they own.
(Again, note, however, that technically the process of decrypting encrypted video content to put it on your server, even for your own use, and even if you own the disc, is
NOW/CURRENTLY technically illegal.)
On another note.....
A similar situation (in terms of odd and unreasonable claims) exists with cable TV.
With my cable service, I can "rent" an on-demand movie, which entitles me to view it for some limited time - let's say three days.
Or I can "purchase" it, which, from the way it's phrased, sure sounds like now I
OWN it.
However, what I've
REALLY purchased is a license that allows me to watch that movie as many times as I like, for an unlimited amount of time, but only from that cable company.
(I can't download a copy, and I can;t take my license to a new cable company; the copy I "bought"
ONLY works as long as I subscribe to
THAT PARTICULAR CABLE COMPANY.)
Obviously, if I'd
ACTUALLY bought it, there would be some way for me to "take it with me", either as plastic, or as a license I could transfer if I moved to a different cable company or simply abandoned cable TV.
To me, this makes the claim that "you are purchasing the movie" a deliberately false statement; because you are really just purchasing an unlimited time license for viewing that movie with that particular vendor.
Thou shalt not steal. It's really pretty basic!
Is ok as long as you don't get caught. Any politician can tell you that..😀
