Stealing from work. Is it ever justified?

dotsman wrote: »

There are so many examples, I'm at a loss to pick just one.

OK, so here goes - if I make up some phrase, and people start using it, do I have the right to expect them to pay me for using it? Do I have the right to call them a criminal? Threaten them with fines/prison etc?

If you have copywritten it then yes. It is an artists brains and work that made that song,if you dont want to pay for it then dont,but dont steal it either, just dont listen to it.
Why should you pay to go into concerts you are only listening,why pay for the cinema when you are only watching and why pay a whore ...........etc

Ronin247 wrote: »

If you have copywritten it then yes. It is an artists brains and work that made that song,if you dont want to pay for it then dont,but dont steal it either, just dont listen to it.
Why should you pay to go into concerts you are only listening,why pay for the cinema when you are only watching and why pay a whore ...........etc

I am paying for a concert as I am asking the band to perform for me (and the X amount of others attending). I am paying the cinema of watching a movie. I've never been with a whore, so not sure what you are referring to!

But music, like all art, belongs to the people it affects. A song becomes a part of me after I listen to it. That is the beauty of music/art.

I will not begrudge an artist their keep, and strongly believe that the solution to the current situation is that music is purchased online directly from the artist, thereby cutting out the record companies (who are an antiquated concept, but refuse to surrender control of the industry). The good artists will make a lot of money, and the people will have far better access to good music.

Stealing is a bad enough crime, but I think anyone who knowingly buys stolen goods is a worse criminal than the thief...

I've used a company socket to charge my phone. :eek:

And back in an older job I worked in the stock room. It would have been soooooo easy to significantly steal from there, as the expected margin for stock loss each year was just ridiculous, security very lax and management pretty much incompetent. Luckily my guilt would've eaten me up so I never took the opportunity.

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

You call it piracy.

It's only theft if the person would have paid for it had they not illegally downloaded it. If somebody who can not afford the latest album from whoever then that person is not going to buy it. If that person illegally downloads it the record companies don't loose anything as the person was never going to purchase it. Therefore not theft. Not saying its right, and yes it is only a pedantic matter, but one worth clarifying I would think.

Well yes, we can call it whatever. It's illegally taking for free what should have been paid for. The owners of the copyrighted material, whether they are losing money or not, are owed money from you for using their copyrighted product. So, if you do not give them this money you owe them, then you are depriving them of money.

dotsman wrote: »

I call it a law that needs changing (and an entire sector that needs to re-adjust to modern life). For the vast majority of human existence, the human race managed just fine without record companies and their cartels.

Well it doesn't really matter if the law needs changing, and I was not talking about your personal preferences. You are legally obligated to pay for using copyright material, you can call that something other than stealing, but at the end of the day you are not giving someone money which you are obligated by law to give them.

If disagreing with laws dictating what you should and shouldn't pay entitles you to break them, then one can steal what one wishes if one disagrees with it. Using similar reasoning to you have "the world was fine before these fat cat millionaires (tesco owners, whatever you want) arrived, and it will be fine without them", and then go stealing from tesco.
What person? What exactly is their thing?

It's not just pedantic. Stealing insinuates that you are taking something away from somebody and they no longer have it. Copying it doesn't impact what that person still has.

It is quite pedantic actually, you'll have to do some expanding with respect to things like the service industry and all those other sorts of things if you'd like to back this point up. What they don't have are the profits for which they put the copyrighted material into production. You have taken those profits from them, they don't care if you wouldn't have bought it, if it were the case that people can have things if they can't afford them , then nobody would buy them. The made the copyright under the assumption that it would make them money.

opinion guy wrote: »

Just because she is Irish doesn't mean she is not racist against Irish people.
To be honest there are things about the Irish attitude to work I could easily criticize...but I would never say the Irish, or anyone else for that matter, possess a delinquent gene. Casting a role race of people as being genetically determined to be delinquent is very very plainly and obviously a racist view.

It's a he, and it was a light-hearted remark ffs. If you'd read the piece properly he was also relaying a "It's been said...." he wasn't giving a personal opinion.

raah! wrote: »

Well yes, we can call it whatever. It's illegally taking for free what should have been paid for. The owners of the copyrighted material, whether they are losing money or not, are owed money from you for using their copyrighted product. So, if you do not give them this money you owe them, then you are depriving them of money.


Well it doesn't really matter if the law needs changing, and I was not talking about your personal preferences. You are legally obligated to pay for using copyright material, you can call that something other than stealing, but at the end of the day you are not giving someone money which you are obligated by law to give them.

If disagreing with laws dictating what you should and shouldn't pay entitles you to break them, then one can steal what one wishes if one disagrees with it. Using similar reasoning to you have "the world was fine before these fat cat millionaires (tesco owners, whatever you want) arrived, and it will be fine without them", and then go stealing from tesco.

I refer to the law requiring change because people like you are defining it as stealing on the basis that it is illegal.

If I go into tesco, take something (ie: a loaf of bread) from their shelf and walk out with it without having paid for it, then it is stealing. If I could somehow copy an item sold in tesco (ie, bake the loaf myself), and therefore did not need to purchase said item from tesco, then it is not stealing.

raah! wrote: »

It is quite pedantic actually, you'll have to do some expanding with respect to things like the service industry and all those other sorts of things if you'd like to back this point up. What they don't have are the profits for which they put the copyrighted material into production. You have taken those profits from them, they don't care if you wouldn't have bought it, if it were the case that people can have things if they can't afford them , then nobody would buy them. The made the copyright under the assumption that it would make them money.

You are failing to understand a simple concept. If the person was not going to buy the item/service from them anyway, then they are not at any financial loss whatsoever.

If the person was not going to buy the item/service from them anyway, then they are not at any financial loss whatsoever.

That is a very strange logic, if you are taking any copyrighted material, the intellectual copyright remains with the holder. Regardless of your intent to purchase, by taking "It" you are infringing upon that copyright.

As such you are liable for the fees for using the copyrighted material.

The loaf of bread is a distraction and defies logic, because the material to bake the bread has to be bought to enable you to bake the loaf.

Regardless from where you buy, the cost involves the labour and workmanship in producing the base products to make your bread, then your own labour in combining and the use of an oven or heat ...... might be better to just buy the loaf.

dotsman wrote: »

Then why do refer to the fact that it is illegal as the basis of your definition that it is stealing?

Well that is all connected in the whole of the argument. I'll give it in full general form at the end.

But fortunately, there is a way to copy music without it costing too much (it still costs money in relation to bandwidth, storage space & a listening device - as well as time).

Well this really doesn't matter, how much it costs. The crux of acting unlawfully, or taking something which is someone's property. Or, more generally, doing something which someone has asked you not to do (we can circumnavigate the law or any of that completely this way), because they can't catch you doing it.

Nothing else matters, you obviously have some personal feelings about music, but the argument was completely general.

They are not the same example. Typically a person getting on the luas for free does require to travel from point a to b. Therefore, they would pay for the service if the option of getting on for free was not available.

Or they would walk? That's the same as saying they wouldn't steal if they couldn't steal. This is pretty much saying nothing. If this is a hard thing for you, imagine "I'll still this, and if I can't, I won't steal it, or buy it. The thing doesn't cost the producers anything to make". This is a million things

Getting the luas for free is the same as taking music for free because it doesn't cost the people running the music/luas companies any money. If it's justified when you disagree with the music industry, then it's justified when you disagree with the luas industry. It may happen that you only disagree with this music industry, then that's fine, and perhaps you aren't a coward. But if you don't steal and rob from a company you don't like, then you are a coward. Don't get offended, here "you" is used in the sense "one". I would be a coward if I said that as well.

Not sure how people sneak into a cinema, so can't comment on that, and as for watching a gig for free, do you mean it's a free gig, or that they have forged tickets etc?

Forged tickets. How do you reconcile this with your previous statements to the tune of "all art should be free"?

Where the hell did you get "coward" from? Please, for the laugh, explain what you are on about.

Well, if the only reason stopping one from diong something, is fear of being caught, then one's actions are dictated by fear, and one would be a coward


Another example for you, since you don't like record companies, if those artists put their music online, would it be ok for us to download it then? They would have no money then for their lively-hood and would starve to death.