As you mention in your article, copyright infringement is not theft. You have a legitimate claim against BuzzFeed, but don't start using the terminology of MPAA/RIAA , unless you want to be hated as much as they are.
MPAA/RIAA aren't hated for abusing terminology. They're hated for extorting exorbitant payments from people (some of whom don't even own computers, let alone download copyrighted material) by abusing legal process (threatening people with lawsuits that are probably groundless, but which the defendants can't afford to pay a lawyer to defend). I doubt that the author of this article could ever deserve that amount of hatred.
Yeah right. They're hated because they look at the people ripping off their stuff and sites like ThePirateBay profiteering on their content and try to stomp on that sandcastle.
No, they are hated for doing the legal/moral equivalent of beating a child bloody for shoplifting a snickers bar. (And added to that, not taking especially good care that the child they happen to be punching is the one that actually took it).
Its not that they react to being ripped off, its that they react more like Los Zetas than law abiding shop-keepers when they do.
And also subverting the public domain (the Disney extensions) and trying to force everyone on the internet to do policing for them (SOPA). And pushing for much harsher IP laws both in scope and penalties.
I'm talking about the Copyright Extension Act in 1995, largely attributed to Disney, that makes really old stuff almost nobody is pirating remain copyright and out of the public domain?
The reasons they may be hated for that don't bear much relationship with copyright infringement which focuses almost exclusively on newly released things that would be copyright regardless of Disney's lobbying.
The Copyright Extension Act in 1995 is a significant part of why they are hated. It is anything but irrelevant or unrelated.
You are the one attempting to insinuate that only people who use The Pirate Bay object to their perversion of copyright laws and discussion. Multiple alternative reasons to be angry with them have now been presented to you, but you just claim they are unrelated because you assert that the real reason is that they are just interested in pirating recent things. In discarding these alternative reasons because they they don't mesh with your already unsupported assertion, you are begging the question.
People are in fact upset with the MPAA/RIAA for their abuse of terminology and all that it facilitates: the corruption of copyright laws, weaponized lawsuits, and the shackling of (frankly ancient) culture.
Pretend that people are only upset with their abuse of terminology because they want to pirate things all you want, but you are dead wrong.
If that were really true, then there should be markedly less piracy of content from publishers not affiliated with the MPAA or RIAA, but that doesn't seem to actually be the case.
How do you think that follows? I am not asserting that people pirate MPAA/RIAA content because they hate those organizations, nor do I think that is the case. That would be a foolish thing to assert.
I think that people pirate primarily opportunistically. Some of these people try to justify their piracy by saying they hate the MPAA/RIAA and pirate for ideological reasons, other pirates do not.
People, sometimes people who pirate, sometimes not, hate the MPAA/RIAA for a wide variety of reasons that have been beaten to death in this thread.
TPB are paramount in any accurate representation of copyright infringement as it exists today.
I don't dispute people are upset with the MPAA/RIAA, just that it has very little to do with Disney or material that shoulda/coulda/woulda been public domain at various times in the last century.
Centuries before Disney was created the copyright length was still decades longer than the age of material people primarily pirate.
You are completely ignoring the possibility that there exist people who hate the MPAA/RIAA despite not pirating. Furthermore you are completely ignoring the possibility that some people pirate opportunistically, and hate the MPAA/RIAA for reasons unrelated to their pirating habit.
You cannot strike out the possibility of non-pirating critics with evidence of what pirates prefer to pirate, since all critics just being pirates is your unsupported assertion.
1. Critics are pirates.
2. Pirates pirate new material. Pirates are not concerned
with old material.
3. Critics are not concerned with old material.
2 is almost certainly true; I certainly do not deny it. 1 is your unsupported assertation. 3 cannot logically follow from 1 and 2 so long as 1 is unsupported. 3 cannot be cited as support of 1, that is circular reasoning.
TPB wouldn't have taken off on such a rapid trajectory if the MPAA and RIAA hadn't been so content to gouge the public in decades past.
Rabid public adoption of music and video piracy is most certainly a function of the public's perceptions re: price/value and anger at blatant collusion on the part of record labels to inflate prices.
Oh bullshit, most people couldn't give a flying fuck about that or they'd have boycotted the products before the internet came along. People like free stuff; it's not like they've been sending 1/10th of the money they saved on stuff they downloaded to the artists' fan clubs.
No reasonable person is going to hate him for using ordinary colloquial English. In ordinary English, we can "steal" many things besides tangible property.
If your friend convinces your girlfriend to leave you for him, it is common to say he "stole" her from you.
A sports team that wins from behind at the last minute against a supposedly better team is often said to have "stolen" the game.
If a restaurant owner paid a waiter at another restaurant to spy on the kitchen to figure out a sauce recipe, and then put that sauce on his menu, many would say the recipe was "stolen" [1].
Falling in love is often described as having your heart "stolen".
If someone bugs your office and hears you practicing your pitch for a startup incubator, and then they apply and pitch your idea before you, using the points from your pitch, most would say he "stole" your idea and your pitch.
[1] This may not be such a good example, because the recipe could be a trade secret, and "theft" might then be legally correct usage instead of just colloquial usage since misappropriating trade secrets is actually called "theft of trade secrets" in some jurisdictions. For instance, see 18 USC 1832, "Theft of Trade Secrets" [2].
It's theft of money. You do something that incurs a debt, but instead of paying that debt you simply keep the money in you pocket - money which is, by right, no longer yours. It's like bouncing a check. Generally speaking, that's chalked up as theft.
By focusing on the infinitely reproducible media (which cannot, strictly speaking, be stolen) the RIAA/MPAA made themselves look like idiots. But just because they failed to correctly identify what was being stolen does not mean that no theft was taking place. Focus on the money not changing hands (which obviously can't be duplicated) and the picture becomes a lot clearer.
Edit: Downvotes? I guess the truth stings, especially when the logic is airtight.
I said "check" not "contract" for a reason. Specifically, because it creates an obligation to pay that does not require a separate contract. Copyright law works in the same way, in that it creates an obligation to pay that does not depend on an additional contract between parties.
Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule. That is to say, copies that can be made without triggering a corresponding obligation. These are gathered under the Fair Use provision of the law.
There are also criminal and civil violations within copyright. But the larger point is that refusing to pay money owed is very much a form of deprivation.
I'm trying to inform you as to why you received downvotes. Perhaps regurgitating descriptions of logical fallacies makes you feel better, but unfortunately it doesn't improve your argument.
Theft has a specific meaning which you should learn before you make broad, sweeping, incorrect statements about it.
Even if your analogy had any relevance to this copyright dispute, it doesn't follow that theft has occurred. Giving a bad cheque is not theft. Giving a bad cheque with a certain intention may amount to fraud.
His argument isn't based on contractual relations. He's quite right; Buzzfeed has kept the money they should have paid him in licensing fees for using his picture, so they have it and he doesn't.
Isn't that a little extreme? Don't see how a person protecting the claims on the photo of his/her own child that is being exploited for commercial gain by someone not authorized by the creator to do so is even in the same context as MPAA/RIAA stuff...
Eh, I think we understand what "theft" means in this context. It's "theft" more in the "theft of service" or "theft of value" sense: Buzzfeed has taken something that would otherwise cost money to use and has used it without payment ("theft of service"). And has potentially sapped value from it by making it tougher for the author to use as he wants (like in a book -- "theft of value").
The problem with doing that is it condones language-creep for rhetorical reasons.
Theft has a meaning which involves "taking with an intent to deprive the owner of their rightful possession". Sure I understand you when you misuse the word, but that doesn't make it a good thing.
My response to this is to say the OP is using extortion to squeeze money out of Buzzfeed with the threat of expensive lawsuits.
That makes him sound like a real bastard doesn't it? Because it isn't really extortion, it is a legitimate attempt to settle a legal dispute. My answer is... let's use words as accurately as we can, rather than twisting them to make our point.
