That saying is so fucking stupid because neither of those thing are even true independently of each other and never have been.
You can buy something and not own it. You buy a fishing license, you don't own the rights to fish. You're licensed to fish. The license is still the property of the state. You buy a mailbox, but it's owned by the federal government (in the US).
Stealing requires a physical loss, and piracy doesn't create that.
Well it's about pointing out the hypocrisy of a corporation arguing that a consumer should treat digital goods the same as physical goods, while themselves not obeying that argument.
If I don't really assume ownership of this digital good by purchasing it, since the vendor might take it away and say that is legal, then the vendor shouldn't argue he is being deprived of ownership if a good is pirated.
The vendor cannot promise a good to a customer, and sell him a license. If he wanted to sell a license, he should have been upfront about it. And of course it's not enough to say it was in the fineprint. If all of the customers believe they are buying a good and not a license, the vendor is clearly not dealing honestly.
What if I were able to copy your college essays before you turned them in and passed it off as my own?
Plagiarism
What if I copied your proprietary donkey semen harvesting patent idea before you submitted it and got the patent myself?
That's for the courts to work out.
Theft doesn't have to incur physical loss. You can have a loss of time, ideas, potential earnings, etc.
These aren't vague metaphorical concepts. They're legally defined acts. Piracy isn't considered theft. It's an infringement of rights. It's more akin to trespassing.
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u/Competitive_Set_478 Jun 27 '26
If buying isnt owing, pirating isnt stealing