If I were to copy someone else's research paper and turn it in as my own work, would I not be accused of stealing someone else's work?
No, you would be accused of plagarism, not theft. If proved to be a plagarist, you would be flunked, suspended, expelled, demoted, or fired, depending on what you plagarized and whether this was school or work. In the event you used said paper to obtain a grant or any other form of profit, that could potentially be considered fraud, and THEN you could probably be arrested, although in most cases, you're still just going to be shamed and sued. The loss of reputation is likely to be more damaging to your career than jail time would have been anyway.
With my paper example, the author of the original research paper put months, perhaps years of research and writing into the project; you are effectively using that hard work without permission for your own benefit, which I conclude to be piracy or theft. Same goes with illegal downloading of anything... you are using another person's work/investment without permission.
You are not claiming to have made the song, it's still clear who made it. This kills the research paper analogy. The key with a research paper is to have your name on it... you generally want it distributed as widely as possible, as in addition to fame, this gives you grants for both more ambitious research projects, and a higher salary. You may in fact be increasing the band's sphere of influence and therefore concert sales, beneficial in a very similar way to using part of a research paper in your own work with the source being properly cited.
Question: You spend years developing a killer app and put it on sale for $5.00. Everyone lobys the app, but some don't feel like they need to pay you for your work. They hack into your computer, copy the source code, and distrbuite it themselves for free. Now, instead of making 100,000 sales for $5.00 each, you make 10. Would you say "hey, they copied my program! Oh well, let me get started on my next application, which I can release in another year or two", or would you be on the phone with the police, accusing them of stealing your work and livelihood? You tend to think of things differently when you're on the other end.
3 problems with this:
1. They hacked into my system, so they've already done something criminal.
2. Pretty much every program in existence can be downloaded for free from torrent sites, and pretty much every experienced computer user not only knows this, but knows the chances of facing penalties if they only download and don't actively distribute are basically nil. Yet, plenty of programs still sell hundreds of thousands, if not millions of copies. That's not to say widespread piracy doesn't lower profits, but we're talking a 10-20% loss, not the 99.99% you're claiming. In rare cases, it actually improves profits as it makes people aware of an otherwise unknown app, although that's a lot rarer with software than it is with music, especially since there's no revenue equivalent to concerts on that.
3. It's HIGHLY unlikely that the person who took the source knows how to actually do anything with it other than just compile and distribute it, so as soon as I add features, the hacked version is old news.
4. If it's not a web ap, why the hell is it online at all? If it IS a web app, why am I selling it, when I'd probably make more from ads or a freemium model?
but there is a reason that I played a free, web based MMO called KOC when I was in college
I played KoC for the social side of it, but I also played RO. My school had a decent coop program so I wasn't dead broke though.
By the way, if you want to talk current law, read the No Electronic Theft Act, which atually defines several criminal offences for "electronic theft", including "Any person who infringes a copyright willfully for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000". It looks like the law already is on my side
We're talking about downloading for personal use, not selling bootlegs, so the first half of that doesn't apply at all. As for $1,000 in 180 days, that's something like 250 full albums per year. I highly doubt many download that kind of volume, and if you're getting that much, it's probably to sell bootlegs... hence why it's tacked on to a law that in all other cases is about PROFITING from others' work.
Look at what happened in Katrina: the authority was gone, so the population reverted to theft, murder, and general lawlessness. People were no longer worried about the consequences of their crimes, so they went out and did pretty much whatever they wanted. Yes, there is still crime when authority is in place, but the crime is at a much much lower rate than it would be if there were no consequences to their actions.
Nope. If things truly devolved to the state you claimed, there would have been thousands murdered, new gangs cropping up, random people burning down entire blocks because they can... but there was none of that, just looting. When people lose everything and their families can't eat, the overwhelming majority will choose crime over letting their family starve. The looting stopped not because the national guard was there (that only stopped it in places they were directly patrolling, and even there, with limited success.) The looting stopped when massive quantities of donated food and temporary shelters were available, so everyone could survive until the city could be rebuilt. Believe it or not, most people actually AREN'T assholes.
