• Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    In those three cases, you’re receiving a service (showing you the movie, cutting your hair and servicing your car), so yeah, you’re stealing their work, which is arguably much worse than stealing objects.

    In contrast, copying a copy of a movie or a game or whatever without removing the original or even a copy of it is not stealing.

    And before you chime in with “but future income!”, those profits are hypothetical, so even in the most uncharitable rational definition, you have stolen something that someone MIGHT have gotten.

    Copying is not theft and you can’t steal something that doesn’t and might never exist.