Quote:
Originally Posted by rcm  If you rented a theater to do a big show with your genesis tribute band and you rented a sound system and lights and hired people to help with the production and tickets were 20 Euros. If you could fill 75% of the Theater you would recoup all the money you spent and any tickets you sell over 75% would be profit.
The big night of your show, there is a long line of people wanting to buy tickets to see the concert. after 50% of the seats had been sold I opened up the side door and let all the rest of the people in for free without buying tickets. The concert is 90% full but you lost money because I let people in for free instead of paying.
Did I steal from you? Was what I did a victimless crime. Would you want to sue me? |
Im not sure how I would call it but I dont see that as theft. Theft is nothing more nothing less then taking away someones property without permission and without giving it back.
Those profits where not mine (or ours for that matter) at that time. Unless everything was covered in contracts (and then it might be fraud, not theft), I would even doubt if I made a good case in court (im not from the USA, we have a different court system). It might be fraud (which is illegal), but then again, it wasn't our money. It is what we might have gotten but if the money isn't there in the first place, how can people steal it? The visitors didn't pay so the estimated profits aren't made. We are making a difference in what I should get (estimation) and what I did get. But we never got that money, in fact no-one ever got that money so it's not theft IMHO (but that doesn't say that this action might be illegal).
Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisso Actually yes this is illegal.
The original painting is a one-off artwork, by cloning it exactly you are hurting the original artist, and also hurting the owner because their original might drop in value. |
Sure, it might be illegal. But did I stole the painting? No I didn't. Look! It's still there hanging on the wall…
Quote:
Originally Posted by Croaker ..or better yet a couple people that paid went to the back door and let a bunch of people in without paying. They saw the show without paying. Did they steal from you? When they left they didn't take anything with them. The music you played is just a copy of the music you always play so you still have your music. heck some of the people that got let in were just walking buy and only came in because it was free...they weren't gonna buy tickets anyway.......... |
Like I said before, nothing that I own in this scenario is taken from me, so no theft. But it might be illegal.
And that's the whole point. A lot of people talk about theft of music but there is nothing stolen. What happens might be illegal (that will even depend on the country. Downloading this content is legal in the Netherlands, uploading it isn't. So I can download anything I want as long as I don't share a single bit of it) but there is nothing stolen. Downloaders are always "stealing" where in fact they are copying.