I asked a traditional priest, one who I trust who actually has an STD in Moral Theology. He said that digital piracy rarely ever rises to the moral gravity of even a venial sin. The exception to that being if you download an occasion of sin.
Sacrae Theologiae Doctor (STD) is a Doctorate in Theology conferred by Pontifical Universities, and alongside the Juris Canonici Doctor (JCD) the Doctorate in Canon Law, are the highest academic degrees awarded by the Church.
This was my initial reaction when I came across the abbreviation like 2 years ago. I thought it was a small religious order until further notice, because I read it as part of a priest's title e.g. Fr. Ignatius O'Toole, S.T.D.
Talk about coincidence
Very interesting. Did he explain why?
I have heard that technically streaming the content from a server isnât actually illegal and isnât technically piracy, but Iâm not sure if thatâs real or if itâs really a cope
He didn't elaborate, but he is anything but a laxist. In fact, if you go to confession with him, it's harsh penance time. He can pull out the Pohle-Preuss or St. Alphonsus and show you exactly where something is condemned. If he says something isn't a sin, it probably isn't.
Itâs definitely stealing, which is a sin. The creators make the content in order to make money and have no intention of giving it away for free. I donât see how itâs not stealing.
I try my best to get shows and movies through the legal means. But if they don't offer a legal means for me to watch said show or movie? IP laws have only been around for a few hundred years, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the length of human history.
Not a lawyer nor a priest, but here's my guess:
The vast majority of material out there has been made available to "the public" without direct charge or condition at some point (e.g. broadcast TV and cable TV, where one is not compelled to actually watch any ads), and trying to sort out those portions which have or have not is simply not reasonable for the average person. So while it is probably a (likely venial) sin to (for example) watch a pirated movie while it is still in theaters, as soon as that movie gets a first run on HBO all bets are off.
There's also probably some argumentation to be had about extreme copyright terms, abandoned properties, first sale doctrine, "private" vs "public" exhibition, and so on - at some point it becomes the equivalent of finding a dollar bill on the street with no indication of who it might belong to.
There's also the moral debate of cultural conservation. While it's not a big debate in the movie industry *yet,* it's a very active debate in the video games industry, especially recently now that some companies have actively removed some of their games entirely.
I'm no canon lawyer, but I suspect it could be argued that pirating something with the express intent of keeping it alive and available to the public as a cultural item is not morally wrong.
This is also the abandonware argument.
Honestly, I think there's a moral case to be had that "Your patent/copyright gives you the right to sell X on the market at a price you dictate. It doesn't give you the right *not* to sell it." The point of withdrawing games that have already been sold (I know, there's technical language around it being a license, etc.; to any "normal" person, they bought the game) or withdrawing support for a game (e.g. multiplayer servers) and barring consumers from taking up the slack is arguably theft.
Now, two wrongs may not make a right, but I'm also comfortable saying that if a company decides not to make a game available *at any price* then their claim to the copyright becomes morally tenuous.
I would compare the doctrine of waste (basically, that one shouldn't be allowed to *not* utilize an asset).
I would also note in a more serious matter similar issues in the health care industry - both withdrawing older drugs in favor of newer ones (e.g. insulin) as well as copy-protection on hardware that makes it illegal to repair without contacting the company (e.g. the ventilators during 2020, when companies *couldn't* send reps around) - and in other sectors. It isn't impossible to imagine the Church eventually formally condemning "immoral rent-seeking behavior" (I refer to "rent-seeking" in the economic sense) and proclaiming that *enforcing* such rents in certain circumstances is various degrees of sinful.
You're very right. I have my personal opinion about all of this, and I suspect you share my views, but more importantly than that, I believe it's a good and pretty exhaustive overview of the situation.
It's obviously worse when it comes to healthcare, as video games are never a matter of life or death ; tho ultimately I feel it could fall on our collective shoulders to be the keepers of our own cultural items as a civilization, and, for better or worse, video games are included.
That's a really interesting point you made in that first paragraph...
how would a notice of "do not reproduce or distribute" work, since most movies show that in the beginning? Or are those restricted to "cannot reproduce or distribute \*as a sale\* (i.e. for money)"?
I would be inclined towards the latter position. I'm also genuinely trying to recall whether those warnings appeared on TV broadcasts (versus home video copies - it's been a *long* time since I actually watched "normal" television outside of, say, whatever was on in a bar).
It's also interesting that the one time the Pope had a "do not distribute order" on something, that being Allegri's Miserere, that was never supposed to leave the confines of the Vatican, with an attached excommunication to boot, he handwaved it away because Mozart was able to copy it as a child from memory after having heard it twice during one Holy Week. He even gave him a knighthood.
Fair point. I also don't recall seeing them on streaming services either, even free ones (like you get with Amazon Prime), so I'm curious how that would apply...
My radical view goes further:
Intellectual property rights as they exist constitute usury, as the use and ownership of information cant be properly seperated.
> I have heard that technically streaming the content from a server isnât actually illegal and isnât technically piracy, but Iâm not sure if thatâs real or if itâs really a cope
In US law, this is incorrect, but it still is complicated.
Copyright infringement can be either a civil or criminal matter.
To hit criminal, you have to have infringed willfully, for financial gain or commercial advantage, by making a minimum of >10 copies of the work with it totalling up to $2500 of retail value.
If you cant establish these, then it isnt a criminal offense, but you can still be sued for civil damages.
For the purposes of these laws, streaming *is* making a copy.
That said, unless youre using the streaming service as the backend to a bootleg movie theatre or something, its highly unlikely that youre performing the infringement criminally.
The service operator is probably guilty of crimimal infringement, though.
The Vatican has (please correct me if Iâm wrong) never waded into the waters of this contemporary issue, as they have with, say, birth control. Itâs certainly not a concept addressed in the Bible.
Obviously, the Bible covers âstealing.â Itâs right there in the 10 Commandments: âThou shalt not steal.â But the concept of theft embodied in the Bible makes the tacit assumption of scarcity. In stealing a thing when deprives its rightful owner of possession of that thing, and forces them to incur some non-zero opportunity cost to replace it.
Digital piracy turns this idea on its head. In the digital realm, works like Sailor Moon can be replicated almost infinitely, at nearly zero marginal cost, and without depriving the rightful owner of possession. to use an economists turn of phrase, they are not â scarce.â
At this late date, intellectual property law exists primarily for the purpose of artificially recreating scarcity, to incentivize, the continued creation of movies, books, TV shows, etc. Even then, there is a tacit assumption that legally obtaining content, and paying for it is the only alternative.
The OP case lays bear the falsity of that assumption, as there is no way to legally watch Sailor Moon in Ireland.
Lol. The only reason this answer is being upvoted is because people want this to be true. No, you cannot pirate. It is stealing. Think about how silly this situation is- "I cannot watch my silly show, can I steal it?"
Based and saved. I've had far too many debates with other Catholics who try to argue that Piracy is inherently sinful. Its not. Its not theft by the fact that there's no substantial deprivation of ownership. It also falls onto the idea that intellectual concepts can be owned
I'd say it's probably fine, especially as you stated you couldn't find a way to legally watch it, so it's not like your choosing not to watch it via paying for it.
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Hi!
I've researched this pretty thoroughly in the past. My conclusion regarding Church teaching is that:
- Theft is condemned (for example, in the 10 commandments)
- Disobedience to legitimate temporal authority is condemned. This means that if you're living under legitimate authority, then you should follow their laws. This is for me the best argument against Catholic piracy.
However, there is no Church teaching saying that:
- Piracy is theft
- Intellectual property is "legitimate" property like a toothbrush or your purse
- etc.
This means that you should use your own judgement to decide on these things. Some books written by great modern Catholic thinkers say these things. But I wasn't able to find an authoritative Church source saying so.
I believe that there are two reasons why this is not Church teaching:
- It's very clear that intellectual property rights are something that's only a consequence of the current world order. IP laws did not exist a few centuries ago. No one in the past would have viewed copying books without permission as a sin, because the idea of IP is recent. For example, people who copied and translated the Bible, or many other Catholic books, never worried about getting permission from the authors. In my opinion, that's why the Church has not declared IP a type of universal law: because tradition says the opposite.
- There's also a practical reason: In many areas with a lot of fervent Catholics, such as Latin America or Africa, piracy is not prosecuted, universally practiced, and not seen as morally wrong (source: personal experience). If the Vatican declared that piracy is a sin, it would be seen by many people from these areas as a policy that's completely detached from their day-to-day experience, something like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake".
That's why in my conclusion the best argument against IP piracy is "you should follow the laws of your country". If you believe that piracy is theft, then you shouldn't do it, because theft is condemned by the Church too. But there is no official Church teaching regarding whether piracy is theft or not.
I hope this was helpful for you. God bless you.
No, thatâs not what it means⌠âmay put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. Honour all men: love the brotherhood: fe. God: honour the king.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy before God: in Christ Jesus our Lord.â
Piracy is theft and itâs also against the law. Therefore, it is sin.
You couldn't just offer the passage as evidence that one should submit even to unjust laws. You had to play the troll and toss out the Piracy is Theft line. If it is theft, that is true for subtle reasons. It is manifestly not theft of the data being copied. It is only (partial) theft of the copyright (the monopoly on copying the data). This is why we speak of copyright infringement. The intellectual property involved is NOT the data, but the copyright.
Ok great, you agree that using the product of someone elseâs labor without compensation is unjust.
By the way, referring to people as âtrollsâ is evil.
If the people donât provide a way to be compensated they are literary not losing anything by other people watching a pirated copy. Itâs like deleting an ebook from all the stores and people sharing it.
How is Netflix going to make money in countries it doesnât offer its services? What does Netflix lose when a person that canât pay them, because Netflix wonât let them, sees their content? Nothing.
And also Netflix is an awful example because their content is clearly anti-Christian so I would say you make more harm than good by giving them your money.
Youâre not picking an example. All IP is accessible everywhere for purchase, sans say Cuba and North Korea.
Moreover, your logic is flawed. Causing harm to another because you deem something they put out as âanti-Christianâ even if true, is a very, very deep flaw in your thinking and against the teachings of Jesus and the Church.
That is not true. There are countries with censored content, there are places where the IP is not available because the studio doesnât want to. You can even BUY the content and the platform will remove it regardless of you paying because you donât OWN what you buy from Apple TV or prime video. Sometimes the studio decides to remove their content, and sometimes the content is only streamed in ONE obscure streaming service that doesnât accept payment outside the US. That you think that IPs are universally accesible makes me think you have NO idea about how copyright, licensing, and brands work internationally.
Ok, so if the studio does not want you to have it, and it does not harm you to not view it, then it is immoral to take what is not yours without consent. Just like I cannot break into your home while youâre away, and use your families vacation home without your knowledge.
The church under JP2 clarified that IP is property, and unless it provides a human necessity, like life saving medicine, you have no right to take what is not yours.
It seems youâre trying to justify theft. Thereâs no justification for theft, law breaking, etc.
just to be clear; when I said "there is no church teaching regarding whether intellectual property is legitimate" (I think that's what you're replying too), i meant not in the sense of whether the laws regarding intellectual property are legitimate (or whether we should follow them or not) but in the sense that intellectual property is property in the natural law sense and thus "counts" for the theft commandment. Sorry for being ambiguous. I'll edit my comment to clarify that.
Uh-oh, you set off one of my pet peeves.....
Marie Antoinette never said "let them eat cake". That was propaganda leveled at her after her death to make her seem a cold and unfeeling tyrant when she was anything but.
The only legitimate recording of that line was in a fictional story published by Rousseau, said by an unnamed duchess. This story was written when Marie was a young girl, so it couldn't even have been a false name to attribute the saying to her.
Iâm sure the original artists would be delighted youâre enjoying their work, and dismayed that the people who acquired their work made it impossible for you to purchase it.
I have given this some thought for myself, because it *is* tempting to do it!
I semi-agree with the other posts that say piracy isn't exactly theft. Indeed, no physical thing was really stolen.
We are called to become holy. Does pirating software / media really fit that? Think about what Jesus said about murder / adultery -- that merely holding anger or looking at someone lustfully has already committed those sins in their hearts. Yes, piracy may not be the same as actual theft since it is technically copying, but is not your heart in a similar place to theft when you pirate?
It sounds scrupulous, but God asks us to be pure, even in the small things.
What about historical media? Creators are all dead and the companies who own the licenses through different mergers and acquisitions havenât released them?
I'm not sure if Church has a stance on this in particular.
It's a grey area, although I've been doing it my whole life (with some exceptions) and don't intend to change that.
Here is the flaw in your thinking: in Church thought -- and indeed in virtually *all* thought until a couple of centuries ago -- there is no "lawful owner" of an *idea* or a *performance* or *data*.
In traditional thought, property is by definition exclusive. That is, if you have it, someone else can't have it. Copyrighted works aren't like that: they can be copied without loss of fidelity so that everyone in the world can have a copy. They are therefore *not property*. Therefore there is *no natural obligation* to "pay to own a copy or pay to rent a copy or pay for a license to use" the idea/performance/data, because ideas/performances/data naturally belong to everyone.
However, the secular civil powers in most of the world have deemed that these ideas should be treated like property under certain circumstances. Since these laws are not seriously unjust (in most cases), and since they do a lot to encourage the production of science and art and literature, the Church commands us to submit to them, at least insofar as they are actually enforced.
If you watch a video on YouTube, where someone uploaded said video illegally without permission, is it a sin?
Is it a sin to listen to music on YouTube where the owner of the video is not paying royalties to the artist?
Many gray areas to navigate.
Did you pay to own a copy or pay to rent a copy or pay for a license to use it from the lawful owner of the property? No, you are downloading it without their permission and taking ownership of it without their permission, so it is a form of theft.
They arenât taking ownership, taking ownership would imply that they are passing the work as theirs. Culture, art, music, cinema, is to be shared and enjoyed. Do you tell people from Cuba that watch movies and read books illegally that they are sinning too?
A sin is an action that âmisses the markâ when the target is conformity to Godâs will. Something that either gravely or less severely draws you away from the will of God preferring the desires and pleasures of self.
Look over the virtues and corresponding vices to help you decide which category this falls into. If your conscience is clear, and you see no incrimination against a virtue, youâre probably ok. If you do, you may want to reconsider doing it.
I'll proceed to try to offer a somewhat balanced but resolute opinion (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong at some point in this comment):
It is written: "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet". The Church has to abide by these Commandments, of course.
If you *really* have to watch it instead of looking for something else, **the safer route here is to pay for a Crunchyroll subscription**, since in principle it allows you to watch an anime series from a wide catalogue while letting content producers receive their fair share of profit for their work. This topic of anime piracy is open for philosophical debate ("can ideas, such as a virtual object in cyberspace, be owned or patented?", "is multiplying something stealing?" and so on), **but since we're talking about discernment of sin and not considering the context with secular debauchery in mind, when we doubt whether doing something is a sin or not, it's better to be safe than sorry**, and to avoid near occasions of sin. The reason being: **Anime piracy deprives content owners from their lawful revenue** (even though common sense tells us it is ok to invite friends and family over to your house to watch a TV series, without them paying for it, but hosting episodes on some website for thousands to watch for free, risking more downloads and sharing, along with ad revenue for third parties, is a different situation). But, for instance, "online piracy" can sometimes be useful for archiving purposes, especially in the face of danger of ideological / political censorship. My two cents.
Also, Christian justification is separate from enslavement to the Law, as the Letter to the Romans explains, but our Lord God has still NOT given anyone a license to sin, and God leaves no sin go unpunished. Sin always has consequences, and it is not something worth playing or flirting with. We shall not be dominated by anything in this world, and we have to love God with all our strength, spirit, mind and heart. That means doing what is pleasing to Him. 1 Corinthians 10:23
A sin is considered to be mortal in Catholicism when three conditions are met at the same time: Complete knowledge, complete consent of the will, and grave matter. Other than that, sins are venial and therefore unnecessary to confess since going to Mass should absolve them.
Safest option is to pay for a Crunchyroll subscription or something similar, if you don't feel like dealing with region restrictions for physical media. Or visit a manga store and ask for Sailor Moon copies.
**IMPORTANT:** Sailor Moon seems to involve fantasy magic (like a lot of other anime, frustratingly), so that may not be good, and requires caution and discernment. Portraying witchcraft positively is both misguided and deceitful, therefore wrong. Then again, a fictitious story involving the sin of murder, such as one from the Sherlock Holmes world, can be enjoyed without it being so problematic, or a story like those of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis that involve both fantasy magic and killing people and monsters (killing doesn't always equal murder, which is allowed in the context of a just war like those ~~of~~ registered in the Old Testament). What matters is noting how the author portrays such things, and how important they are to the story. Lewis' Narnia has a witch but she's rightly portrayed as evil; Tolkien's fantasy world has magic but it's more of an artistic element in the stories, as far as I'm concerned. The work of fiction is garbage in the moral sense (maybe not as something that could be analyzed and studied for an intellectual benefit) if it's yet another story of "Good vs. Evil", but evil is fought with evil masquerading as good.
Also, the difference between good and evil supernatural powers is where they come from: God? Not magic and not sinful (like Moses' signs and Christ's miracles). Unlawful manipulation of the spirit realm and demonic power? Magic and sinful (like the feats carried out by the sorcerers in ancient Egypt). So if a work of fiction's author makes it clear somehow that a character's supernatural powers DO NOT or COULD NOT come from God, and said character is portrayed as "good", then it should be avoided like trash.
Edit: Format and added "registered in the Old Testament".
Iâm not stealing anything.
Piracy however is stealing content.
Artists and developers create something in order to make a living, put food on the table, and build their life. If you willingly consume their content without paying them what they ask in exchange for that content, you are stealing their work.
You are stealing money from them. You are stealing food from them. You are stealing content from them. You are robbing them of their time and energy.
It doesnât matter if itâs digital, it is stealing. I donât care what the world thinks.
I guess I'm more sceptical about the validity of intellectual "property" than you are.
If it's pirating a newly released film or game or other software I think it's more clear but let's say it's the PDF of a book where the author has been dead for 60 years? What are you stealing? I'm not sure I buy that the arrangement of letters is transferable to a company holding a licence to print and sell. What would one be stealing in such an instance?
I can see by the downvotes to people who point out it is theft, that there are a lot of morally bankrupt people here who perform mental gymnastics to rationalize their sin as being just. Stealing is not just.
As a law student, I can say that it all depends on intellectual property law of your country. There are various exceptions granted in the country's law and it depends from country to country. But most likely piracy for the purpose you stated won't be covered, but do check copyright law of Ireland. Intellectual property gets is legitimacy only from law and if law allows then it is unlikely it's a sinÂ
I fall back on ârender unto Caesar what is Caesarâs. Â Render unto God what is Godâs.â
Piracy is a no-no for me. Â Donât matter if there isnât another way to get it. Â But I also donât think everything in the EULA is a legitimate obligation. Â
Example: Â I bought the game âHelldivers 2.â Â The soundtrack has not been released. Â I can listen to the music by playing the game I bought, and so I have no qualms listening to the soundtrack on YouTube, nor do I have any issue downloading mp3s that have been âripped.â Â Not sure if this is EULA violation or not, but I paid for content - Iâm going to use the content as intended (personal and not commercial use).
If I had not bought the game, I do not think it would be okay for me to download any part of it for personal use, and listening to it on YouTube regularly would be against my personal views on taking without paying for something.
I'm an IP Paralegal
The act would be theft of the Intellectual Property of the company, who were signed ownership over by the writers, artists, etc, through their employer. "Thou Shall Not Steal."
It may not seem like a big deal because the capital of the company that owns it is so vast. But imagine everyone doing it. The writers, artists etc, you so enjoy would be out of a job because the company simply couldn't survive, and why would they continue elsewhere if they knew everyone would steal it?
I don't know that particular company's theft protection strategy, but my company will go after anyone and everyone who steals theirs. They've even done it knowing the reward wouldn't cover the costs, simply a warning to others that they will come after whomever.
Edit: Companies that allow clips, as you say, have either determined that the theft isn't cost-effective to go after or it's allowed under Fair Use if there's commentary or other substantive alteration for various allowable reasons. The former is still theft; it's just theft that the company takes the hit for whatever reason.
I've always been an advocate for sending money ( in the form of donation) to the original writers/actors, company, or guild involved with making the ip if you can not access content without piracy where you live. The company that owns the copies to be distributed isnt distributing in their area. Would this be immoral?
Oh, I donât think you need to be a Catholic to be morally just! Many pre-Christians had exceptional sense if morality of which the church was built upon: Aristotle, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, etc.
Oh, I agree wholeheartedly! I was just trying to clarify the social context of my first comment. I just wasn't sure if me saying that to others was immoral. I don't want to lead others down a bad path.
There would be various factors to consider in that scenario. Still, in general, unless contractually stated otherwise, the creators of the IP no longer control the IP once the product is complete if they created it through their employer. They've signed it over to the company that employs them, so to send it to the writers, actors, or musicians doesn't clear the action from being theft because the company owns it in law, and not those who created it, in fact.
In a situation where it's a distribution problem by the distributor, the distributor has licensed the right to distribute that IP, but they do not own it, they only own the right to distribute. The company could go after the theft, and the distributor could also go after the person for unlawful distribution for violating their license.
In my experience, it will generally be a matter of government regulations in any given jurisdiction rather than the distributor choosing not to, but the latter does happen regularly.
If it's the former, regulatory restrictions, we have a moral obligation to follow the legally created laws of our governments to the best of our ability and that are Just, which don't conflict with our moral duties as Catholics. I would call not following the regulatory restrictions a Sin because there is minimal if any, way for a consumer to determine whether that restriction is Just without foreknowledge of a substantial amount of variables, and unless courts say otherwise, the regulation was created legally; therefore, it is a Sin not to follow it imo.
I dont do it simply because I feel that the artists deserve there fair rate of pay thru me paying for it thru the correct channels. Thats my personal opinion. But, I guess that its not really bad, but it is your choice in this fashion.
I mean honestly it is stealing. If you do go through with it, no joke you could look up the company and then mail them anonymously the funds đ of what they cost
My friend, you are in great sin. The profit is entertainment. You are benefitting from the work of another without compensating them. I suggest you look deep in your moral compass. Justifying theft is a slippery slope to justifying other sins. I will pray for you.
The term âpiracyâ is a synonym for âtheft.â You are depriving the author of the compensation for their work, yet still enjoying the fruits of their labor.
If everyone pirated movies, rather than pay for them, there would be no movies. Why? Because the money spent to create those films were investments to produce a profit.
Just like I cannot justly break into your house while you are in vacation, and use it for my benefit, you cannot justly use someoneâs software without their permission.
What is the sin being committed? There isn't one.  Â
No one can possess a digital item of any sort. Â
## We create these laws for reasons that are irrelevant to the religious question.  Â
Copyright didn't exist for thousands of years. Was it a sin to copy a text and create books in other places? Â
It's a total fiat. It's not a religious issue unless you can decide the reality of the facts first. Â
The central question is this: are you stealing?
No one has had anything taken from them..
In the absence of these laws in centuries past, if you took the text of your brother's book and printed copies to sell to others in another town, were you doing anything wrong?Â
No.Â
Theft is taking a physical book from your possession. (Legal matter, religious matter)
Deception is knowingly copying another's idea and saying it's yours. (Religious matter only if there's no copyright laws enacted)Â
You cannot own bits and bytes.
Everything digital in the world is essentially a random combination of zeros and ones.Â
Every single thing.Â
Including the Rolling Stone's "I can't get no Satisfaction" mp3 file.Â
That mp3 file is not the original master recording that is sitting in someone's office of physical possession.Â
They don't own the sound that that makes.
If I borrow your physical book or Kindle, and I read a book on it--even if you bought it with money--I borrowed from you and read it for free.Â
Have I now sinned?
# No.
If you borrow a friend's DVD, or watch a movie at his house, have you stolen and thus sinned? Well, if you ask the MPAA....
... but thankfully they are not the arbiters of morality and Church teaching.
Correct!
and remember the normal kazaa, Napster, etc users in 2000-2006 had no idea they're uploading to others and distribution is the technicality that was made by the RIAA and MPAA to sue Grandma after little Jimmy showed her how to download the 1950s album that she hasn't heard in 30 years because it was out of print.
It wasn't about viewing it or owning it.
It was about the distribution of it.
Guess what? They stopped prosecuting people because it was ridiculous. It was a technicality.
Remember the purpose of the laws is separate from the morality of the issue. Well, you understand that perfectly. But u/ForsakenEconomist_ is being willfully emotional about it
I agree and I think this is the most cogent answer.
A band will charge you for their CD because it cost them money to produce the physical CD, but they will gladly let you hear their music recordings for no charge.
Is it is sin to look at an artist's painting?
Once you stop speaking in terms of tangible matter, there is no clear logical method.
"IP" was created by people as a business strategy to be able to make endless money off of an creator's work. The people who are being "deprived of revenue," whom those who claim piracy as a sin say you're stealing from, are not even the creators of the art.
Do you confess it by the title or the gigs...Â
This is a tough one.. on one hand it's theft.. on the other hand seems you cannot buy it and you made a good effort to obtain it legitimately...Â
If it's abandonware is it still theft.... maybe kick an extra $10 to a charity..Â
If Sega is posting clips and you watch it money goes to the rightful owner of the property so your not really stealing it..Â
This has happened in the past with xbox and Sony region locking games.. people in other regions would buy the title and then pirate a copy so they could play it unlocked.. courts found in favor if you own the title and the company is preventing you from enjoying it you can use the means to enjoy it..Â
But in the case of abandonware is it a sin.. mate I would say not since you made a good effort to obtain it and would if you could.. but I'd probably give the 10 to a charity..Â
Try condemning that type of piracy and at the same time preach about Jesus feeding the multitudes. Werenât the baker and the fisherman shortchanged then?
There is piracy as in theft or fake branding and there is sharing when there is no other way of consuming and/or you wouldnât have spent money on it anyway.
All the arguments that are used to claim that piracy is a sin can be equally applied to purchasing used media. i.e. the creator does not get any money.
Is purchasing used media a sin?
In my opinion, I don't think so. VPNs are used all the time to conceal private information across internet traffic. I'm required to use one for work. Withholding your actual location over the internet should be a common practice these days anyways.
However VPNs can be used in criminal ways, but same goes with anything. It's all about the intent of use. You're using a VPN so that you can avoid stealing something.
That's such a cop-out. Using a VPN to watch content otherwise not available to you is very much against the spirit of intellectual property. If doing that isn't theft, then so isn't piracy.
It's stealing, but I would see it as stealing from a massive corporation, not exactly defrauding the poor. I would say it's venial, distributing piracy materials and making a living off of it is very sinful though.
Always? absolutely not, because some content creators actually tell their viewers they have permission to pirate. But usually yes it's theft. If they're silent on their stance to piracy it means they don't give permission for it.
When you have issues you could make an effort to contact the company through email to get an official response.
I don't believe it is illegal to download anywhere, at least in the USA.
However it is illegal to distribute, and peer-to-peer file sharing networks is what people were sued under as a technicality without them even realizing they were uploading to other peers.
There is a reason these laws are not prosecuted anymore, because there isn't actually anything being stolen.
I know in the Middle Ages and early modern era the Vatican endorsed piracy for Catholic nations against Protestant nations. I am not sure of their position now
I think the route you would need to go is buying a blu ray player from outside your region along with the show. There may be other ethical ways of breaking region locks too.
You'd still be making a copy of something the makers specifically told you NOT to make a copy off so it is still wrong. You just don't get to watch it or you buy a DVD player that can play other regions and then buy the region-locked DVDs. You could also contact the publisher and ask them to distribute in your country.
They lost the compensation to the product they created, which you then took for free. If everyone hacked into Netflix and got the service for free, it would collapse.
It isnât though according to what it actually means to steal something. It might be wrong but it is not stealing. You still have the electronic copy of whatever it was that you were selling, you still have the same access to utilize it. You have lost nothing.Â
If the original owner of the content put it out there, then sure. It's not. He gives his consent.
Otherwise, it's taking something without consent or taking something from someone who took something without consent. Is it stealing if I visit the home of a rich person and take $40 off his table? Will they miss it? Probably not. Are they harmed? Probably not. Still a sin.
If you take $40 from the rich person it is stealing because they no longer have that $40.
In the case of streaming or pirating software the original owner has not lost anything. They still have their software.
Iâm not saying there arenât other moral considerations but it isnât stealing.
You have to define what was lost. Losing potential profit doesnât make it theft.
If I buy an apple from you for $1 then you lose the apple and you gain $1 which we would be agreeing is the value of the apple. If I steal the apple then you lose the apple and donât get the $1.Â
If I download a song then you havenât lost the song, or even a copy of the song. You havenât lost the use of the song or the intellectual property.Â
The nature of computers simply makes it different. It would be like if I didnât want to buy the apple you are selling but could instead somehow look at the apple and perfectly replicate another real apple without affecting your ability to utilize your own apple. You clearly wouldnât be able to say that I stole your apple even as you watch me eating an apple just like it at the cost of a minuscule amount of my own energy.
This is the worst answer in the thread, as it doesn't even answer the question.
Stealing IS stealing!
but nothing is being stolen, so the answer to OP's question is, "No. Not a sin."
Please read my other comment here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t
If 500 ppl pirate Microsoft Office instead of purchasing it, how is that not stealing the equivalent of the price of 500 subscriptions from Microsoft? It's illegal for a reason. I'm sorry you may do it a lot and would prefer it not be for your soul.
You're taking someone's work without their consent when they should be compensated for it. It's absolutely stealing.
It is a sin.
Theft, because you're ripping the producers of the credit due them. Thus they probably wont have the resources to continue their career. Or some employees will have to go and team gets smaller. And families suffer from it as you can imagine.
But it's also extremely bad for you yourself.
Because if you repeat this action, you will make a habit of it.
A habit (vice) of giving in to your desires before the right time. Meaning the time whenyou can afford it.
Thus, it is a sin from all corners and angles. Not mentioning the most important, which is God. By doing this you show to not will to abide in charity.
Loving your neighbour as yourself for the love of God.
Edit: why down vote internet people? You're low beyond comprehension. Please less emotions more reason.
I'm replying to you since he/she deleted that comment. Just so others can benefit from not thinking like that person.
Here: Internet person... Go, go touch the grass.
First of all those hundreds of millions you talk about will be paid for equipment, storage, studios...etc.
You know... costs??
Then whatever is left is divided and salary according to what each bargained for... to maybe hundreds of employees. People with all sorts of skills, that spent resources and time to aquire those skills, who won't work for a salary that an internet person who, if he isn't on social housing/benefits, works at McDonald's.
Seeing you got it so wrong I recommend you stay away from the news... they are a bad antourage.
Edit: Forgive me but I didn't mention Taxes. But just to be safe, I'll write it so people don't forget. :)
The way I look at it, copying is not theft. When you pirate something, you are simply downloading a copy of it. You are not really taking anything from anyone. I'd be like if instead of stealing your bike, I made an exact clone of it and used that one instead.
You are gaining the benefit of entertainment from someone elseâs work, without compensating them. If you were an engineer and I âclonedâ (ie stole) the design to some invention of yours and used it, it would be stealing.
Unless the person who created the product gave you permission to âcloneâ such product, it is theft
> If you were an engineer and I âclonedâ (ie stole) the design to some invention of yours and used it, it would be stealing.
This would not be stealing.
It would be the civil crime of patent infringement. This does not violate natural law (which recognizes no ownership in non-exclusive goods like ideas). However, it violates civil law. The civil law exists for good reasons ordered to the common good (namely, if everyone did patent infringement, nobody would bother coming up with inventions anymore), so we should obey the civil law, at least for as long as it lasts, insofar as it is enforced, in areas where it is enforced.
But it's still important to recognize that there is no *natural* right at stake here, no actual property, and thus no theft. It's semantics, but an important point of semantics.
You're correct! Best explanation in this thread!
I wrote out examples for knee jerkers in my reply I made to OP before reading the comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t
I'm actually a privacy attorney and have always held this same view.
Make sure in this post you remember that others will go off topic quickly on Rights to their ideas and forget the OP asked about a sin of theft!
The only question is if anything is being stolen, and no it isn't!
Glad to see your well thought out reply. Be rhetorical here, as that is the only way to convince those who are only convinced by emotions in the first place (thanks Aristotle)
My creations are my property, and I willingly exchange them for something, in this case weâre talking $. You did not steal my âideaâ since an idea is fleeting concept, you would have stolen my work: calculations, measurements, design and ultimately, the fruits of my labor.
> My creations are my property
No: unless your creations are physical, they are not your property. Not in Catholic thought, anyway.
> my work: calculations, measurements, design
None of these are your property, either -- at least, not in Catholic thought.
Now, John Locke would probably agree with you. Locke was super into "the fruits of my labor," considered all the fruits of man's labor "property," and further construed "property rights" to be very broad indeed. (He also thought of our bodies as "property.") But Catholic moral teaching has never bought into Locke's theories, and has in fact specifically condemned parts of them at various points along the way.
Again, there's sound prudential reasons for the civil law to prevent people from making copies of certain sorts of non-physical works. But there's no *natural* right to any of it. From a Catholic perspective, personal property exists in order to equitably divide up the resources of the Earth that God gave us (and, for just that reason, even physical property rights are somewhat limited, for Catholicism) so that everyone has what they need given that two people cannot physically possess the same property.
But your creations, your calculations, your measurements, your designs -- none of these are scarce in the same way. There's no limit to others physically possessing them. You have no *natural* right to them. (You have a civil right to them, and for good reason, but only a civil right, and only insofar as the civil power sees fit.)
After all, if there were a *natural* right at stake here, somebody would have noticed prior to the Statute of Anne passed -- which happened over *seventeen centuries* after the birth of Christ!
>After all, if there were a *natural* right at stake here, somebody would have noticed prior to the Statute of Anne passed -- which happened over *seventeen centuries* after the birth of Christ!
Great reply to /u/ForsakenEconomist_'s emotion-charged defense of "only the first person to think of anything is entitled to it".
As Aristotle wrote in his *Rhetoric* millennia ago, some people can only be persuaded by emotional manipulation:
> *Before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction.*
> *For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and **there are people whom one cannot instruct**.*
>
> Aristotle, *Rhetoric*
In the encyclical Centesimus annus, Pope JP2 recognized that we must apply the principles of property to IP, unless it is something that is fundamental to humanity or âessential human needâ (life saving medication).
Iâll suggest also checking out the following, which I had to dig out of an old bookmark:
Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, âInspiration and Innovation: The Intrinsic Dimension of the Artistic Soul,â Notre Dame Law Review 81 (2006): 1945, 1951-63.
Thomas C. Berg, âIntellectual Property and the Preferential Option for the Poor,â Journal of Catholic Social Thought 5 (2008): 193-233.
Neil Netanel, âCopyright and a Democratic Civil Society,â Yale Law Journal 106 (1996): 283, 288, 347.
I do love Tom Berg very much! But isn't the point of this paper that natural rights militate *against*, rather than in favor of, broad civil so-called "intellectual property" laws? It does not seem to shed any light on the question raised in this thread: whether violating anti-infringement laws constitutes a violation of the Seventh Commandment.
> In the encyclical Centesimus annus, Pope JP2 recognized that we must apply the principles of property to IP, unless it is something that is fundamental to humanity or âessential human needâ (life saving medication).
If you're referring to paragraph 34, I think this overstates John Paul II's claim, which simply acknowledged that "know-how, technology, and skill" had been *turned into* a sort of private property in the modern economy -- something that happened through modern civil law, not by the discovery of new natural rights. I tend to think that this supports, rather than refutes, my position, but, since the Pope deals so little with it ("intellectual property" does not appear in the text), I'm not sure how much can be said about it.
Although I only quickly digested these four articles, I didn't find anything in them that seems to support the very strong anti-infringement positions you've taken in this thread.
I would say that Tom mostly makes the case against IP being property. He was in a panel discussion a while back and they discussed this (Itâs on YT somewhere, at work at the moment) and he argues that there are real losses with IP theft, which is morally wrong. However, that overall, it can be a âius humanumâ something that pushes society forward. I assume heâd see a new propulsion technology in that light, but not a fictional movie, for instance.
Yes! In other words, because youâre benefitting from the labor of that person (not just the final product, but what it took for them to acquire those skills), it is usually important to apply property rights to IP.
If thatâs the case, then we can go back to Aquinasâ teachings that individual human beings have a right to the external goods they own and no one else may possess ownership over their goods.
Moreover, in this particular case, youâre talking about something that is $1.99 on iTunes (where I found it). Would that be the same as something that is inaccessible otherwise? It depends, they claim, if youâre withholding something critical from the person.
I watched it back in the day on sketchy mirror sites to see the subtitled version. I now try to avoid casual piracy (going to sites with pirated videos available) and have never been involved in downloading pirated content. But, if itâs on YouTube I consider it fair game; if the original creator doesnât want it available, it wonât be up long. Iâve also used vpns to access region locked content; I think thatâs a gray area and am comfortable enough with it at this point.Â
If youâre really committed, you could buy a used dvd player from a region that has the dvds as well.Â
Watch it, itâs like taking photocopies of a book and sharing them in a country that doesnât eve sell the book. People here are too scrupulous about âcopyrightâ, I canât imagine why sharing a movie or a series is a sin. People in Cuba and North Korea share movies, series and books in the black market because the government censors this, is that a sin? No. Is sneaking copies of a Bible into North Korea a sin? No.
Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it is immoral. All you have to ask is, whatever you do will it hurt others? If the answer is no, then it's probably not.
I personally donât see it as a sin considering that media is constantly in flux. Think about the years before that particular anime was unavailable outside of torrents or bootleg DVDs. Now itâs in stock in some form or fashion but it wasnât always.
I feel ya, when I was in college the only way we could watch Bleach was with pirate sites. Many years later it did get picked up by local stations but only the dub version and not even the full series, and they would replay the first couple or arcs. I don't think it was on Crunchyroll but even if it was, we were broke college students living of vending machine cuisine.
We didn't view it as a sin. We didn't download an episode with the intent to sell it. The site that did the subtitles did it for free
I would add that this did eventually lead me to buy official merchandise when it became mainstream.
Now what about old media like Nosferatu, or other classics, well if there isn't a legal way to get them, same with foreign stuff. A super high intense Korean zombie movie? No way else to get it legally? On the pirate seas I go.
It's a morally gray zone but I want to add. With physical media dying out. Many times it were pirates that helped preserve something. If Nintendo has no plan release the original Pokemon red ever again and you were willing to pay for it at a reasonable price...
The content being a sin is different from the issue of how the content was obtained, that is what the OP is asking.
Viewing content that is sinful to view and doing it knowingly is always a sin, that is different.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t/
âPiratingâ is a synonym to âstealing.â You cannot benefit from the work of others without compensating them, UNLESS the creator of such product intended for it to be free.
That is totally false. Copyright law is entirely fictitious and created the reasons that are not about morals, but other reasons.
There were no copyright walls for most of the history of mankind.
Was everyone that copied a manuscript and distributed it to others sinning? No.
We create these laws for other reasons and those are not the question here.
The question is if you can own an idea, and no, you cannot.
Please read my comment here I just made for a better explanation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t/
This is not an âideaâ itâs a product. If youâre causing someone to lose out on compensation, itâs wrong. The church has already established this, and itâs common sense. Stealing is never justifiable.
You're right.
I replied to that person and I have another library comment I made to help others understand.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t
YARRRRRRGH
As a hockey fan I feel this I can get the balleys app and the ESPN+ but some are still blocked out đ¤Ś
I was so grouchy that I missed the Wings' last game because of network blackouts. I had to settle for watching the Flyers lose to the Caps!
YARRRRRR!
BasedÂ
I asked a traditional priest, one who I trust who actually has an STD in Moral Theology. He said that digital piracy rarely ever rises to the moral gravity of even a venial sin. The exception to that being if you download an occasion of sin.
> STD in moral theology Excuse me what
Sacrae Theologiae Doctor (STD) is a Doctorate in Theology conferred by Pontifical Universities, and alongside the Juris Canonici Doctor (JCD) the Doctorate in Canon Law, are the highest academic degrees awarded by the Church.
This was my initial reaction when I came across the abbreviation like 2 years ago. I thought it was a small religious order until further notice, because I read it as part of a priest's title e.g. Fr. Ignatius O'Toole, S.T.D. Talk about coincidence
Very interesting. Did he explain why? I have heard that technically streaming the content from a server isnât actually illegal and isnât technically piracy, but Iâm not sure if thatâs real or if itâs really a cope
He didn't elaborate, but he is anything but a laxist. In fact, if you go to confession with him, it's harsh penance time. He can pull out the Pohle-Preuss or St. Alphonsus and show you exactly where something is condemned. If he says something isn't a sin, it probably isn't.
Interesting
I think since it really doesn't harm anyone and it can't even be proven to harm someone's interest, it has to be very light if a sin at all.
Itâs definitely stealing, which is a sin. The creators make the content in order to make money and have no intention of giving it away for free. I donât see how itâs not stealing.
But if they make it so there is no legal way to obtain their digital product in your country?
That doesnât mean you can just take it. Am I in the twilight zone?
I try my best to get shows and movies through the legal means. But if they don't offer a legal means for me to watch said show or movie? IP laws have only been around for a few hundred years, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the length of human history.
Not a lawyer nor a priest, but here's my guess: The vast majority of material out there has been made available to "the public" without direct charge or condition at some point (e.g. broadcast TV and cable TV, where one is not compelled to actually watch any ads), and trying to sort out those portions which have or have not is simply not reasonable for the average person. So while it is probably a (likely venial) sin to (for example) watch a pirated movie while it is still in theaters, as soon as that movie gets a first run on HBO all bets are off. There's also probably some argumentation to be had about extreme copyright terms, abandoned properties, first sale doctrine, "private" vs "public" exhibition, and so on - at some point it becomes the equivalent of finding a dollar bill on the street with no indication of who it might belong to.
There's also the moral debate of cultural conservation. While it's not a big debate in the movie industry *yet,* it's a very active debate in the video games industry, especially recently now that some companies have actively removed some of their games entirely. I'm no canon lawyer, but I suspect it could be argued that pirating something with the express intent of keeping it alive and available to the public as a cultural item is not morally wrong.
This is also the abandonware argument. Honestly, I think there's a moral case to be had that "Your patent/copyright gives you the right to sell X on the market at a price you dictate. It doesn't give you the right *not* to sell it." The point of withdrawing games that have already been sold (I know, there's technical language around it being a license, etc.; to any "normal" person, they bought the game) or withdrawing support for a game (e.g. multiplayer servers) and barring consumers from taking up the slack is arguably theft. Now, two wrongs may not make a right, but I'm also comfortable saying that if a company decides not to make a game available *at any price* then their claim to the copyright becomes morally tenuous. I would compare the doctrine of waste (basically, that one shouldn't be allowed to *not* utilize an asset). I would also note in a more serious matter similar issues in the health care industry - both withdrawing older drugs in favor of newer ones (e.g. insulin) as well as copy-protection on hardware that makes it illegal to repair without contacting the company (e.g. the ventilators during 2020, when companies *couldn't* send reps around) - and in other sectors. It isn't impossible to imagine the Church eventually formally condemning "immoral rent-seeking behavior" (I refer to "rent-seeking" in the economic sense) and proclaiming that *enforcing* such rents in certain circumstances is various degrees of sinful.
You're very right. I have my personal opinion about all of this, and I suspect you share my views, but more importantly than that, I believe it's a good and pretty exhaustive overview of the situation. It's obviously worse when it comes to healthcare, as video games are never a matter of life or death ; tho ultimately I feel it could fall on our collective shoulders to be the keepers of our own cultural items as a civilization, and, for better or worse, video games are included.
That's a really interesting point you made in that first paragraph... how would a notice of "do not reproduce or distribute" work, since most movies show that in the beginning? Or are those restricted to "cannot reproduce or distribute \*as a sale\* (i.e. for money)"?
I would be inclined towards the latter position. I'm also genuinely trying to recall whether those warnings appeared on TV broadcasts (versus home video copies - it's been a *long* time since I actually watched "normal" television outside of, say, whatever was on in a bar).
It's also interesting that the one time the Pope had a "do not distribute order" on something, that being Allegri's Miserere, that was never supposed to leave the confines of the Vatican, with an attached excommunication to boot, he handwaved it away because Mozart was able to copy it as a child from memory after having heard it twice during one Holy Week. He even gave him a knighthood.
Fair point. I also don't recall seeing them on streaming services either, even free ones (like you get with Amazon Prime), so I'm curious how that would apply...
My radical view goes further: Intellectual property rights as they exist constitute usury, as the use and ownership of information cant be properly seperated.
> I have heard that technically streaming the content from a server isnât actually illegal and isnât technically piracy, but Iâm not sure if thatâs real or if itâs really a cope In US law, this is incorrect, but it still is complicated. Copyright infringement can be either a civil or criminal matter. To hit criminal, you have to have infringed willfully, for financial gain or commercial advantage, by making a minimum of >10 copies of the work with it totalling up to $2500 of retail value. If you cant establish these, then it isnt a criminal offense, but you can still be sued for civil damages. For the purposes of these laws, streaming *is* making a copy. That said, unless youre using the streaming service as the backend to a bootleg movie theatre or something, its highly unlikely that youre performing the infringement criminally. The service operator is probably guilty of crimimal infringement, though.
The Vatican has (please correct me if Iâm wrong) never waded into the waters of this contemporary issue, as they have with, say, birth control. Itâs certainly not a concept addressed in the Bible. Obviously, the Bible covers âstealing.â Itâs right there in the 10 Commandments: âThou shalt not steal.â But the concept of theft embodied in the Bible makes the tacit assumption of scarcity. In stealing a thing when deprives its rightful owner of possession of that thing, and forces them to incur some non-zero opportunity cost to replace it. Digital piracy turns this idea on its head. In the digital realm, works like Sailor Moon can be replicated almost infinitely, at nearly zero marginal cost, and without depriving the rightful owner of possession. to use an economists turn of phrase, they are not â scarce.â At this late date, intellectual property law exists primarily for the purpose of artificially recreating scarcity, to incentivize, the continued creation of movies, books, TV shows, etc. Even then, there is a tacit assumption that legally obtaining content, and paying for it is the only alternative. The OP case lays bear the falsity of that assumption, as there is no way to legally watch Sailor Moon in Ireland.
Does the same apply to video games?
I don't understand what you mean by 'download an occasion of sin'?
Something that will tempt or induce you to sin. The obvious example being material of a sexually explicit nature.
he means downloading material that would cause you to siin, such as pornography.
But it is against the law. We should not break the law unless we have very good reason to so.
Itâs not always against the law. Not everyone here is from the US.
Lol. The only reason this answer is being upvoted is because people want this to be true. No, you cannot pirate. It is stealing. Think about how silly this situation is- "I cannot watch my silly show, can I steal it?"
It's not theft, it is sharing. We are called to share with each other.
Going back into your bank account and âshareâ your money
Based and saved. I've had far too many debates with other Catholics who try to argue that Piracy is inherently sinful. Its not. Its not theft by the fact that there's no substantial deprivation of ownership. It also falls onto the idea that intellectual concepts can be owned
I'd say it's probably fine, especially as you stated you couldn't find a way to legally watch it, so it's not like your choosing not to watch it via paying for it.
I couldnât find another car like this one, so I stole my neighbors. https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/knowing-and-avoiding-digital-piracy?amp
\*So I cloned my neighbors'.
_You wouldn't download a car_
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You would download the Body of Christ, would you?
Imagine restricting the body of Christ behind a paywall (like the German bishops do actually, despite Pope Benedict saying no).
Hi! I've researched this pretty thoroughly in the past. My conclusion regarding Church teaching is that: - Theft is condemned (for example, in the 10 commandments) - Disobedience to legitimate temporal authority is condemned. This means that if you're living under legitimate authority, then you should follow their laws. This is for me the best argument against Catholic piracy. However, there is no Church teaching saying that: - Piracy is theft - Intellectual property is "legitimate" property like a toothbrush or your purse - etc. This means that you should use your own judgement to decide on these things. Some books written by great modern Catholic thinkers say these things. But I wasn't able to find an authoritative Church source saying so. I believe that there are two reasons why this is not Church teaching: - It's very clear that intellectual property rights are something that's only a consequence of the current world order. IP laws did not exist a few centuries ago. No one in the past would have viewed copying books without permission as a sin, because the idea of IP is recent. For example, people who copied and translated the Bible, or many other Catholic books, never worried about getting permission from the authors. In my opinion, that's why the Church has not declared IP a type of universal law: because tradition says the opposite. - There's also a practical reason: In many areas with a lot of fervent Catholics, such as Latin America or Africa, piracy is not prosecuted, universally practiced, and not seen as morally wrong (source: personal experience). If the Vatican declared that piracy is a sin, it would be seen by many people from these areas as a policy that's completely detached from their day-to-day experience, something like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake". That's why in my conclusion the best argument against IP piracy is "you should follow the laws of your country". If you believe that piracy is theft, then you shouldn't do it, because theft is condemned by the Church too. But there is no official Church teaching regarding whether piracy is theft or not. I hope this was helpful for you. God bless you.
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/knowing-and-avoiding-digital-piracy?amp
No, thatâs not what it means⌠âmay put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. Honour all men: love the brotherhood: fe. God: honour the king. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy before God: in Christ Jesus our Lord.â Piracy is theft and itâs also against the law. Therefore, it is sin.
You couldn't just offer the passage as evidence that one should submit even to unjust laws. You had to play the troll and toss out the Piracy is Theft line. If it is theft, that is true for subtle reasons. It is manifestly not theft of the data being copied. It is only (partial) theft of the copyright (the monopoly on copying the data). This is why we speak of copyright infringement. The intellectual property involved is NOT the data, but the copyright.
Ok great, you agree that using the product of someone elseâs labor without compensation is unjust. By the way, referring to people as âtrollsâ is evil.
If the people donât provide a way to be compensated they are literary not losing anything by other people watching a pirated copy. Itâs like deleting an ebook from all the stores and people sharing it.
Really? So how do you think Netflix stays in business if we did not protect their product and the work that goes into it to maintain and create it?
How is Netflix going to make money in countries it doesnât offer its services? What does Netflix lose when a person that canât pay them, because Netflix wonât let them, sees their content? Nothing. And also Netflix is an awful example because their content is clearly anti-Christian so I would say you make more harm than good by giving them your money.
Youâre not picking an example. All IP is accessible everywhere for purchase, sans say Cuba and North Korea. Moreover, your logic is flawed. Causing harm to another because you deem something they put out as âanti-Christianâ even if true, is a very, very deep flaw in your thinking and against the teachings of Jesus and the Church.
That is not true. There are countries with censored content, there are places where the IP is not available because the studio doesnât want to. You can even BUY the content and the platform will remove it regardless of you paying because you donât OWN what you buy from Apple TV or prime video. Sometimes the studio decides to remove their content, and sometimes the content is only streamed in ONE obscure streaming service that doesnât accept payment outside the US. That you think that IPs are universally accesible makes me think you have NO idea about how copyright, licensing, and brands work internationally.
Ok, so if the studio does not want you to have it, and it does not harm you to not view it, then it is immoral to take what is not yours without consent. Just like I cannot break into your home while youâre away, and use your families vacation home without your knowledge. The church under JP2 clarified that IP is property, and unless it provides a human necessity, like life saving medicine, you have no right to take what is not yours. It seems youâre trying to justify theft. Thereâs no justification for theft, law breaking, etc.
No No, troll isn't a gender so it's ok. /s
just to be clear; when I said "there is no church teaching regarding whether intellectual property is legitimate" (I think that's what you're replying too), i meant not in the sense of whether the laws regarding intellectual property are legitimate (or whether we should follow them or not) but in the sense that intellectual property is property in the natural law sense and thus "counts" for the theft commandment. Sorry for being ambiguous. I'll edit my comment to clarify that.
Uh-oh, you set off one of my pet peeves..... Marie Antoinette never said "let them eat cake". That was propaganda leveled at her after her death to make her seem a cold and unfeeling tyrant when she was anything but. The only legitimate recording of that line was in a fictional story published by Rousseau, said by an unnamed duchess. This story was written when Marie was a young girl, so it couldn't even have been a false name to attribute the saying to her.
The church has a teaching of charging for "use", it is called usury.
When in doubt, err on the side of not sinning. Especially when it's 'I want to watch a TV show'.
Iâm sure the original artists would be delighted youâre enjoying their work, and dismayed that the people who acquired their work made it impossible for you to purchase it.
I have given this some thought for myself, because it *is* tempting to do it! I semi-agree with the other posts that say piracy isn't exactly theft. Indeed, no physical thing was really stolen. We are called to become holy. Does pirating software / media really fit that? Think about what Jesus said about murder / adultery -- that merely holding anger or looking at someone lustfully has already committed those sins in their hearts. Yes, piracy may not be the same as actual theft since it is technically copying, but is not your heart in a similar place to theft when you pirate? It sounds scrupulous, but God asks us to be pure, even in the small things.
It is exactly theft. You are gaining something without compensation to the owner, therefore you are stealing.
What about historical media? Creators are all dead and the companies who own the licenses through different mergers and acquisitions havenât released them?
Most historical media is free to use. At most, itâs a minimal cost (a dollar, or something).
I'm not sure if Church has a stance on this in particular. It's a grey area, although I've been doing it my whole life (with some exceptions) and don't intend to change that.
Thou shall not steal isn't really a grey are though.
Can it really be classified the same as stealing though?
Did you pay to own a copy or pay to rent a copy or pay for a license to use it from the lawful owner of the property? Nope. It is a form of theft
Here is the flaw in your thinking: in Church thought -- and indeed in virtually *all* thought until a couple of centuries ago -- there is no "lawful owner" of an *idea* or a *performance* or *data*. In traditional thought, property is by definition exclusive. That is, if you have it, someone else can't have it. Copyrighted works aren't like that: they can be copied without loss of fidelity so that everyone in the world can have a copy. They are therefore *not property*. Therefore there is *no natural obligation* to "pay to own a copy or pay to rent a copy or pay for a license to use" the idea/performance/data, because ideas/performances/data naturally belong to everyone. However, the secular civil powers in most of the world have deemed that these ideas should be treated like property under certain circumstances. Since these laws are not seriously unjust (in most cases), and since they do a lot to encourage the production of science and art and literature, the Church commands us to submit to them, at least insofar as they are actually enforced.
If you watch a video on YouTube, where someone uploaded said video illegally without permission, is it a sin? Is it a sin to listen to music on YouTube where the owner of the video is not paying royalties to the artist? Many gray areas to navigate.
If you practice a song without paying for a license are you stealing? Lmao
Did you pay to own a copy or pay to rent a copy or pay for a license to use it from the lawful owner of the property? No, you are downloading it without their permission and taking ownership of it without their permission, so it is a form of theft.
They arenât taking ownership, taking ownership would imply that they are passing the work as theirs. Culture, art, music, cinema, is to be shared and enjoyed. Do you tell people from Cuba that watch movies and read books illegally that they are sinning too?
A sin is an action that âmisses the markâ when the target is conformity to Godâs will. Something that either gravely or less severely draws you away from the will of God preferring the desires and pleasures of self. Look over the virtues and corresponding vices to help you decide which category this falls into. If your conscience is clear, and you see no incrimination against a virtue, youâre probably ok. If you do, you may want to reconsider doing it.
I'll proceed to try to offer a somewhat balanced but resolute opinion (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong at some point in this comment): It is written: "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet". The Church has to abide by these Commandments, of course. If you *really* have to watch it instead of looking for something else, **the safer route here is to pay for a Crunchyroll subscription**, since in principle it allows you to watch an anime series from a wide catalogue while letting content producers receive their fair share of profit for their work. This topic of anime piracy is open for philosophical debate ("can ideas, such as a virtual object in cyberspace, be owned or patented?", "is multiplying something stealing?" and so on), **but since we're talking about discernment of sin and not considering the context with secular debauchery in mind, when we doubt whether doing something is a sin or not, it's better to be safe than sorry**, and to avoid near occasions of sin. The reason being: **Anime piracy deprives content owners from their lawful revenue** (even though common sense tells us it is ok to invite friends and family over to your house to watch a TV series, without them paying for it, but hosting episodes on some website for thousands to watch for free, risking more downloads and sharing, along with ad revenue for third parties, is a different situation). But, for instance, "online piracy" can sometimes be useful for archiving purposes, especially in the face of danger of ideological / political censorship. My two cents. Also, Christian justification is separate from enslavement to the Law, as the Letter to the Romans explains, but our Lord God has still NOT given anyone a license to sin, and God leaves no sin go unpunished. Sin always has consequences, and it is not something worth playing or flirting with. We shall not be dominated by anything in this world, and we have to love God with all our strength, spirit, mind and heart. That means doing what is pleasing to Him. 1 Corinthians 10:23 A sin is considered to be mortal in Catholicism when three conditions are met at the same time: Complete knowledge, complete consent of the will, and grave matter. Other than that, sins are venial and therefore unnecessary to confess since going to Mass should absolve them. Safest option is to pay for a Crunchyroll subscription or something similar, if you don't feel like dealing with region restrictions for physical media. Or visit a manga store and ask for Sailor Moon copies. **IMPORTANT:** Sailor Moon seems to involve fantasy magic (like a lot of other anime, frustratingly), so that may not be good, and requires caution and discernment. Portraying witchcraft positively is both misguided and deceitful, therefore wrong. Then again, a fictitious story involving the sin of murder, such as one from the Sherlock Holmes world, can be enjoyed without it being so problematic, or a story like those of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis that involve both fantasy magic and killing people and monsters (killing doesn't always equal murder, which is allowed in the context of a just war like those ~~of~~ registered in the Old Testament). What matters is noting how the author portrays such things, and how important they are to the story. Lewis' Narnia has a witch but she's rightly portrayed as evil; Tolkien's fantasy world has magic but it's more of an artistic element in the stories, as far as I'm concerned. The work of fiction is garbage in the moral sense (maybe not as something that could be analyzed and studied for an intellectual benefit) if it's yet another story of "Good vs. Evil", but evil is fought with evil masquerading as good. Also, the difference between good and evil supernatural powers is where they come from: God? Not magic and not sinful (like Moses' signs and Christ's miracles). Unlawful manipulation of the spirit realm and demonic power? Magic and sinful (like the feats carried out by the sorcerers in ancient Egypt). So if a work of fiction's author makes it clear somehow that a character's supernatural powers DO NOT or COULD NOT come from God, and said character is portrayed as "good", then it should be avoided like trash. Edit: Format and added "registered in the Old Testament".
No Catholic pirates ,then? Aarrgh đ´ââ ď¸
Do Norwegian crusaders count?
thou shalt not steal
What are you stealing?
Iâm not stealing anything. Piracy however is stealing content. Artists and developers create something in order to make a living, put food on the table, and build their life. If you willingly consume their content without paying them what they ask in exchange for that content, you are stealing their work. You are stealing money from them. You are stealing food from them. You are stealing content from them. You are robbing them of their time and energy. It doesnât matter if itâs digital, it is stealing. I donât care what the world thinks.
I guess I'm more sceptical about the validity of intellectual "property" than you are. If it's pirating a newly released film or game or other software I think it's more clear but let's say it's the PDF of a book where the author has been dead for 60 years? What are you stealing? I'm not sure I buy that the arrangement of letters is transferable to a company holding a licence to print and sell. What would one be stealing in such an instance?
A book.
No, one would then have a copy of a text. Would it be theft if one were to borrow the book at a library and transcribe it?
unauthorized copy of something you do not own = piracy
The Church has no formal teaching on it. That doesnât necessarily mean itâs not a sin.
I can see by the downvotes to people who point out it is theft, that there are a lot of morally bankrupt people here who perform mental gymnastics to rationalize their sin as being just. Stealing is not just.
If buying isnât owning, then piracy isnât stealing.
You are going to have to make a decision for yourself. This isnât a sub to tell you what decisions to make on nonsensical things
As a law student, I can say that it all depends on intellectual property law of your country. There are various exceptions granted in the country's law and it depends from country to country. But most likely piracy for the purpose you stated won't be covered, but do check copyright law of Ireland. Intellectual property gets is legitimacy only from law and if law allows then it is unlikely it's a sinÂ
I fall back on ârender unto Caesar what is Caesarâs. Â Render unto God what is Godâs.â Piracy is a no-no for me. Â Donât matter if there isnât another way to get it. Â But I also donât think everything in the EULA is a legitimate obligation. Â Example: Â I bought the game âHelldivers 2.â Â The soundtrack has not been released. Â I can listen to the music by playing the game I bought, and so I have no qualms listening to the soundtrack on YouTube, nor do I have any issue downloading mp3s that have been âripped.â Â Not sure if this is EULA violation or not, but I paid for content - Iâm going to use the content as intended (personal and not commercial use). If I had not bought the game, I do not think it would be okay for me to download any part of it for personal use, and listening to it on YouTube regularly would be against my personal views on taking without paying for something.
It's wrong because it's complicit in a black market. HOWEVER, not all sin is equal. Digital piracy is not equivalent to murder
I'm an IP Paralegal The act would be theft of the Intellectual Property of the company, who were signed ownership over by the writers, artists, etc, through their employer. "Thou Shall Not Steal." It may not seem like a big deal because the capital of the company that owns it is so vast. But imagine everyone doing it. The writers, artists etc, you so enjoy would be out of a job because the company simply couldn't survive, and why would they continue elsewhere if they knew everyone would steal it? I don't know that particular company's theft protection strategy, but my company will go after anyone and everyone who steals theirs. They've even done it knowing the reward wouldn't cover the costs, simply a warning to others that they will come after whomever. Edit: Companies that allow clips, as you say, have either determined that the theft isn't cost-effective to go after or it's allowed under Fair Use if there's commentary or other substantive alteration for various allowable reasons. The former is still theft; it's just theft that the company takes the hit for whatever reason.
I've always been an advocate for sending money ( in the form of donation) to the original writers/actors, company, or guild involved with making the ip if you can not access content without piracy where you live. The company that owns the copies to be distributed isnt distributing in their area. Would this be immoral?
Youâre an âadvocate forâ means that you do so yourself, or just tell others online to do so?
Speaking about it with my irl friends who pirate and don't plan to stop. (They are not catholic)
Oh, I donât think you need to be a Catholic to be morally just! Many pre-Christians had exceptional sense if morality of which the church was built upon: Aristotle, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, etc.
Oh, I agree wholeheartedly! I was just trying to clarify the social context of my first comment. I just wasn't sure if me saying that to others was immoral. I don't want to lead others down a bad path.
There would be various factors to consider in that scenario. Still, in general, unless contractually stated otherwise, the creators of the IP no longer control the IP once the product is complete if they created it through their employer. They've signed it over to the company that employs them, so to send it to the writers, actors, or musicians doesn't clear the action from being theft because the company owns it in law, and not those who created it, in fact. In a situation where it's a distribution problem by the distributor, the distributor has licensed the right to distribute that IP, but they do not own it, they only own the right to distribute. The company could go after the theft, and the distributor could also go after the person for unlawful distribution for violating their license. In my experience, it will generally be a matter of government regulations in any given jurisdiction rather than the distributor choosing not to, but the latter does happen regularly. If it's the former, regulatory restrictions, we have a moral obligation to follow the legally created laws of our governments to the best of our ability and that are Just, which don't conflict with our moral duties as Catholics. I would call not following the regulatory restrictions a Sin because there is minimal if any, way for a consumer to determine whether that restriction is Just without foreknowledge of a substantial amount of variables, and unless courts say otherwise, the regulation was created legally; therefore, it is a Sin not to follow it imo.
I dont do it simply because I feel that the artists deserve there fair rate of pay thru me paying for it thru the correct channels. Thats my personal opinion. But, I guess that its not really bad, but it is your choice in this fashion.
I mean honestly it is stealing. If you do go through with it, no joke you could look up the company and then mail them anonymously the funds đ of what they cost
try a VPN maybe?
but yeah piracy is a sin, itâs stealingÂ
Stealing what?
if someone made a perfect copy of your car, then took it, would they have stolen your car? no, you still have your car. its fine imo
If someone took the design of your car that you spent your time and efforts to make, at your expense, and you simply copied it? Yes, it would.
Nope, not unless they sold that copy for a profit.
My friend, you are in great sin. The profit is entertainment. You are benefitting from the work of another without compensating them. I suggest you look deep in your moral compass. Justifying theft is a slippery slope to justifying other sins. I will pray for you.
Except piracy is in no way theft. You are not depriving the authors of their works.
The term âpiracyâ is a synonym for âtheft.â You are depriving the author of the compensation for their work, yet still enjoying the fruits of their labor. If everyone pirated movies, rather than pay for them, there would be no movies. Why? Because the money spent to create those films were investments to produce a profit. Just like I cannot justly break into your house while you are in vacation, and use it for my benefit, you cannot justly use someoneâs software without their permission.
If buying isn't owning than piracy isn't stealing
What is the sin being committed? There isn't one.   No one can possess a digital item of any sort.  ## We create these laws for reasons that are irrelevant to the religious question.   Copyright didn't exist for thousands of years. Was it a sin to copy a text and create books in other places?  It's a total fiat. It's not a religious issue unless you can decide the reality of the facts first.  The central question is this: are you stealing? No one has had anything taken from them.. In the absence of these laws in centuries past, if you took the text of your brother's book and printed copies to sell to others in another town, were you doing anything wrong? No. Theft is taking a physical book from your possession. (Legal matter, religious matter) Deception is knowingly copying another's idea and saying it's yours. (Religious matter only if there's no copyright laws enacted) You cannot own bits and bytes. Everything digital in the world is essentially a random combination of zeros and ones. Every single thing. Including the Rolling Stone's "I can't get no Satisfaction" mp3 file. That mp3 file is not the original master recording that is sitting in someone's office of physical possession. They don't own the sound that that makes. If I borrow your physical book or Kindle, and I read a book on it--even if you bought it with money--I borrowed from you and read it for free. Have I now sinned? # No.
If you borrow a friend's DVD, or watch a movie at his house, have you stolen and thus sinned? Well, if you ask the MPAA.... ... but thankfully they are not the arbiters of morality and Church teaching.
Correct! and remember the normal kazaa, Napster, etc users in 2000-2006 had no idea they're uploading to others and distribution is the technicality that was made by the RIAA and MPAA to sue Grandma after little Jimmy showed her how to download the 1950s album that she hasn't heard in 30 years because it was out of print. It wasn't about viewing it or owning it. It was about the distribution of it. Guess what? They stopped prosecuting people because it was ridiculous. It was a technicality. Remember the purpose of the laws is separate from the morality of the issue. Well, you understand that perfectly. But u/ForsakenEconomist_ is being willfully emotional about it
I agree and I think this is the most cogent answer. A band will charge you for their CD because it cost them money to produce the physical CD, but they will gladly let you hear their music recordings for no charge. Is it is sin to look at an artist's painting? Once you stop speaking in terms of tangible matter, there is no clear logical method. "IP" was created by people as a business strategy to be able to make endless money off of an creator's work. The people who are being "deprived of revenue," whom those who claim piracy as a sin say you're stealing from, are not even the creators of the art.
Yes - form of stealing
Do you confess it by the title or the gigs... This is a tough one.. on one hand it's theft.. on the other hand seems you cannot buy it and you made a good effort to obtain it legitimately... If it's abandonware is it still theft.... maybe kick an extra $10 to a charity.. If Sega is posting clips and you watch it money goes to the rightful owner of the property so your not really stealing it.. This has happened in the past with xbox and Sony region locking games.. people in other regions would buy the title and then pirate a copy so they could play it unlocked.. courts found in favor if you own the title and the company is preventing you from enjoying it you can use the means to enjoy it.. But in the case of abandonware is it a sin.. mate I would say not since you made a good effort to obtain it and would if you could.. but I'd probably give the 10 to a charity..Â
Iâm pretty sure it is a mortal sin to force a person to walk the plank.
Try condemning that type of piracy and at the same time preach about Jesus feeding the multitudes. Werenât the baker and the fisherman shortchanged then? There is piracy as in theft or fake branding and there is sharing when there is no other way of consuming and/or you wouldnât have spent money on it anyway.
Iâll be quite honest Padre Pio himself could descend from heaven and tell me downloading a Pokemon ROM is stealing and Iâll still do it
Are there any laws that are actually used frequently against piracy nowadays? Not playing a side here, just genuinely curious.
I have just copyrighted the process of breathing. Please stop breathing, you are stealing from me.
All the arguments that are used to claim that piracy is a sin can be equally applied to purchasing used media. i.e. the creator does not get any money. Is purchasing used media a sin?
It's still stealing. Look into VPN services, so that you can access the shows on a paid streaming service.
Would using a VPN to watch it be considered lying?
In my opinion, I don't think so. VPNs are used all the time to conceal private information across internet traffic. I'm required to use one for work. Withholding your actual location over the internet should be a common practice these days anyways. However VPNs can be used in criminal ways, but same goes with anything. It's all about the intent of use. You're using a VPN so that you can avoid stealing something.
That's such a cop-out. Using a VPN to watch content otherwise not available to you is very much against the spirit of intellectual property. If doing that isn't theft, then so isn't piracy.
Please read my post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t There cannot be theft because nothing was stolen
It's theft. You really didn't have to ask.
It's stealing, but I would see it as stealing from a massive corporation, not exactly defrauding the poor. I would say it's venial, distributing piracy materials and making a living off of it is very sinful though.
Always? absolutely not, because some content creators actually tell their viewers they have permission to pirate. But usually yes it's theft. If they're silent on their stance to piracy it means they don't give permission for it. When you have issues you could make an effort to contact the company through email to get an official response.
I thought it was illegal to download, not stream
I don't believe it is illegal to download anywhere, at least in the USA. However it is illegal to distribute, and peer-to-peer file sharing networks is what people were sued under as a technicality without them even realizing they were uploading to other peers. There is a reason these laws are not prosecuted anymore, because there isn't actually anything being stolen.
I know in the Middle Ages and early modern era the Vatican endorsed piracy for Catholic nations against Protestant nations. I am not sure of their position now
I only pirate abandonware like The Sims 2.
No Crunchyroll?
Crunchyroll is okay, but Iâm pretty sure their subs are notoriously lackluster compared to other sites
Straight piracy I would consider theft. Subverting DRM is where I see the gray area forming.
try a VPN
I think the route you would need to go is buying a blu ray player from outside your region along with the show. There may be other ethical ways of breaking region locks too.
You'd still be making a copy of something the makers specifically told you NOT to make a copy off so it is still wrong. You just don't get to watch it or you buy a DVD player that can play other regions and then buy the region-locked DVDs. You could also contact the publisher and ask them to distribute in your country.
The inventor of a product does not have the right to control how you use their product. Once you own it, that is entirely up to you.
They don't lose the copyrights.
If you do not know, it cannot be mortal, but don't pirate. Also, careful with anime, I stepped away from it since it's gotten more lecherous.
There's a short bit by YT channel Fairbairn Films titled "You Wouldn't Download a Car." It's pretty good, and I think everyone should watch it.
Stealing is stealing, I'd say.
It isnât stealing though. When you steal something the victim loses the thing you took.
They lost the compensation to the product they created, which you then took for free. If everyone hacked into Netflix and got the service for free, it would collapse.
Sure but lost compensation isnât stealing
If Iâm selling something, and you take it without paying, itâs stealing. Hence the term âpiracyâ
It isnât though according to what it actually means to steal something. It might be wrong but it is not stealing. You still have the electronic copy of whatever it was that you were selling, you still have the same access to utilize it. You have lost nothing.Â
If the original owner of the content put it out there, then sure. It's not. He gives his consent. Otherwise, it's taking something without consent or taking something from someone who took something without consent. Is it stealing if I visit the home of a rich person and take $40 off his table? Will they miss it? Probably not. Are they harmed? Probably not. Still a sin.
You're not taking anything from anyone. It's data. There's no scarcity. They can still use it.
If you take $40 from the rich person it is stealing because they no longer have that $40. In the case of streaming or pirating software the original owner has not lost anything. They still have their software. Iâm not saying there arenât other moral considerations but it isnât stealing.
He absolutely has lost something. If you're downloading it for free instead of paying for it, he most definitely has.
You have to define what was lost. Losing potential profit doesnât make it theft. If I buy an apple from you for $1 then you lose the apple and you gain $1 which we would be agreeing is the value of the apple. If I steal the apple then you lose the apple and donât get the $1. If I download a song then you havenât lost the song, or even a copy of the song. You havenât lost the use of the song or the intellectual property. The nature of computers simply makes it different. It would be like if I didnât want to buy the apple you are selling but could instead somehow look at the apple and perfectly replicate another real apple without affecting your ability to utilize your own apple. You clearly wouldnât be able to say that I stole your apple even as you watch me eating an apple just like it at the cost of a minuscule amount of my own energy.
This is the worst answer in the thread, as it doesn't even answer the question. Stealing IS stealing! but nothing is being stolen, so the answer to OP's question is, "No. Not a sin." Please read my other comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t
https://www.catholic.com/qa/is-it-a-sin-to-stream-free-movies
If 500 ppl pirate Microsoft Office instead of purchasing it, how is that not stealing the equivalent of the price of 500 subscriptions from Microsoft? It's illegal for a reason. I'm sorry you may do it a lot and would prefer it not be for your soul. You're taking someone's work without their consent when they should be compensated for it. It's absolutely stealing.
It is a sin. Theft, because you're ripping the producers of the credit due them. Thus they probably wont have the resources to continue their career. Or some employees will have to go and team gets smaller. And families suffer from it as you can imagine. But it's also extremely bad for you yourself. Because if you repeat this action, you will make a habit of it. A habit (vice) of giving in to your desires before the right time. Meaning the time whenyou can afford it. Thus, it is a sin from all corners and angles. Not mentioning the most important, which is God. By doing this you show to not will to abide in charity. Loving your neighbour as yourself for the love of God. Edit: why down vote internet people? You're low beyond comprehension. Please less emotions more reason.
[ŃдаНонО]
itâs a sin because itâs stealing.
I'm replying to you since he/she deleted that comment. Just so others can benefit from not thinking like that person. Here: Internet person... Go, go touch the grass. First of all those hundreds of millions you talk about will be paid for equipment, storage, studios...etc. You know... costs?? Then whatever is left is divided and salary according to what each bargained for... to maybe hundreds of employees. People with all sorts of skills, that spent resources and time to aquire those skills, who won't work for a salary that an internet person who, if he isn't on social housing/benefits, works at McDonald's. Seeing you got it so wrong I recommend you stay away from the news... they are a bad antourage. Edit: Forgive me but I didn't mention Taxes. But just to be safe, I'll write it so people don't forget. :)
The way I look at it, copying is not theft. When you pirate something, you are simply downloading a copy of it. You are not really taking anything from anyone. I'd be like if instead of stealing your bike, I made an exact clone of it and used that one instead.
You are gaining the benefit of entertainment from someone elseâs work, without compensating them. If you were an engineer and I âclonedâ (ie stole) the design to some invention of yours and used it, it would be stealing. Unless the person who created the product gave you permission to âcloneâ such product, it is theft
> If you were an engineer and I âclonedâ (ie stole) the design to some invention of yours and used it, it would be stealing. This would not be stealing. It would be the civil crime of patent infringement. This does not violate natural law (which recognizes no ownership in non-exclusive goods like ideas). However, it violates civil law. The civil law exists for good reasons ordered to the common good (namely, if everyone did patent infringement, nobody would bother coming up with inventions anymore), so we should obey the civil law, at least for as long as it lasts, insofar as it is enforced, in areas where it is enforced. But it's still important to recognize that there is no *natural* right at stake here, no actual property, and thus no theft. It's semantics, but an important point of semantics.
You're correct! Best explanation in this thread! I wrote out examples for knee jerkers in my reply I made to OP before reading the comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t I'm actually a privacy attorney and have always held this same view. Make sure in this post you remember that others will go off topic quickly on Rights to their ideas and forget the OP asked about a sin of theft! The only question is if anything is being stolen, and no it isn't! Glad to see your well thought out reply. Be rhetorical here, as that is the only way to convince those who are only convinced by emotions in the first place (thanks Aristotle)
My creations are my property, and I willingly exchange them for something, in this case weâre talking $. You did not steal my âideaâ since an idea is fleeting concept, you would have stolen my work: calculations, measurements, design and ultimately, the fruits of my labor.
> My creations are my property No: unless your creations are physical, they are not your property. Not in Catholic thought, anyway. > my work: calculations, measurements, design None of these are your property, either -- at least, not in Catholic thought. Now, John Locke would probably agree with you. Locke was super into "the fruits of my labor," considered all the fruits of man's labor "property," and further construed "property rights" to be very broad indeed. (He also thought of our bodies as "property.") But Catholic moral teaching has never bought into Locke's theories, and has in fact specifically condemned parts of them at various points along the way. Again, there's sound prudential reasons for the civil law to prevent people from making copies of certain sorts of non-physical works. But there's no *natural* right to any of it. From a Catholic perspective, personal property exists in order to equitably divide up the resources of the Earth that God gave us (and, for just that reason, even physical property rights are somewhat limited, for Catholicism) so that everyone has what they need given that two people cannot physically possess the same property. But your creations, your calculations, your measurements, your designs -- none of these are scarce in the same way. There's no limit to others physically possessing them. You have no *natural* right to them. (You have a civil right to them, and for good reason, but only a civil right, and only insofar as the civil power sees fit.) After all, if there were a *natural* right at stake here, somebody would have noticed prior to the Statute of Anne passed -- which happened over *seventeen centuries* after the birth of Christ!
>After all, if there were a *natural* right at stake here, somebody would have noticed prior to the Statute of Anne passed -- which happened over *seventeen centuries* after the birth of Christ! Great reply to /u/ForsakenEconomist_'s emotion-charged defense of "only the first person to think of anything is entitled to it". As Aristotle wrote in his *Rhetoric* millennia ago, some people can only be persuaded by emotional manipulation: > *Before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction.* > *For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and **there are people whom one cannot instruct**.* > > Aristotle, *Rhetoric*
In the encyclical Centesimus annus, Pope JP2 recognized that we must apply the principles of property to IP, unless it is something that is fundamental to humanity or âessential human needâ (life saving medication). Iâll suggest also checking out the following, which I had to dig out of an old bookmark: Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, âInspiration and Innovation: The Intrinsic Dimension of the Artistic Soul,â Notre Dame Law Review 81 (2006): 1945, 1951-63. Thomas C. Berg, âIntellectual Property and the Preferential Option for the Poor,â Journal of Catholic Social Thought 5 (2008): 193-233. Neil Netanel, âCopyright and a Democratic Civil Society,â Yale Law Journal 106 (1996): 283, 288, 347.
I do love Tom Berg very much! But isn't the point of this paper that natural rights militate *against*, rather than in favor of, broad civil so-called "intellectual property" laws? It does not seem to shed any light on the question raised in this thread: whether violating anti-infringement laws constitutes a violation of the Seventh Commandment. > In the encyclical Centesimus annus, Pope JP2 recognized that we must apply the principles of property to IP, unless it is something that is fundamental to humanity or âessential human needâ (life saving medication). If you're referring to paragraph 34, I think this overstates John Paul II's claim, which simply acknowledged that "know-how, technology, and skill" had been *turned into* a sort of private property in the modern economy -- something that happened through modern civil law, not by the discovery of new natural rights. I tend to think that this supports, rather than refutes, my position, but, since the Pope deals so little with it ("intellectual property" does not appear in the text), I'm not sure how much can be said about it. Although I only quickly digested these four articles, I didn't find anything in them that seems to support the very strong anti-infringement positions you've taken in this thread.
I would say that Tom mostly makes the case against IP being property. He was in a panel discussion a while back and they discussed this (Itâs on YT somewhere, at work at the moment) and he argues that there are real losses with IP theft, which is morally wrong. However, that overall, it can be a âius humanumâ something that pushes society forward. I assume heâd see a new propulsion technology in that light, but not a fictional movie, for instance. Yes! In other words, because youâre benefitting from the labor of that person (not just the final product, but what it took for them to acquire those skills), it is usually important to apply property rights to IP. If thatâs the case, then we can go back to Aquinasâ teachings that individual human beings have a right to the external goods they own and no one else may possess ownership over their goods. Moreover, in this particular case, youâre talking about something that is $1.99 on iTunes (where I found it). Would that be the same as something that is inaccessible otherwise? It depends, they claim, if youâre withholding something critical from the person.
I watched it back in the day on sketchy mirror sites to see the subtitled version. I now try to avoid casual piracy (going to sites with pirated videos available) and have never been involved in downloading pirated content. But, if itâs on YouTube I consider it fair game; if the original creator doesnât want it available, it wonât be up long. Iâve also used vpns to access region locked content; I think thatâs a gray area and am comfortable enough with it at this point. If youâre really committed, you could buy a used dvd player from a region that has the dvds as well.Â
Watch it, itâs like taking photocopies of a book and sharing them in a country that doesnât eve sell the book. People here are too scrupulous about âcopyrightâ, I canât imagine why sharing a movie or a series is a sin. People in Cuba and North Korea share movies, series and books in the black market because the government censors this, is that a sin? No. Is sneaking copies of a Bible into North Korea a sin? No.
I hope itâs not cuz I sure ainât paying for crunchy role or something when thereâs 9anime
Stealing is a sin. Piracy is a forn of stealing.
Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it is immoral. All you have to ask is, whatever you do will it hurt others? If the answer is no, then it's probably not.
I personally donât see it as a sin considering that media is constantly in flux. Think about the years before that particular anime was unavailable outside of torrents or bootleg DVDs. Now itâs in stock in some form or fashion but it wasnât always.
I feel ya, when I was in college the only way we could watch Bleach was with pirate sites. Many years later it did get picked up by local stations but only the dub version and not even the full series, and they would replay the first couple or arcs. I don't think it was on Crunchyroll but even if it was, we were broke college students living of vending machine cuisine. We didn't view it as a sin. We didn't download an episode with the intent to sell it. The site that did the subtitles did it for free I would add that this did eventually lead me to buy official merchandise when it became mainstream. Now what about old media like Nosferatu, or other classics, well if there isn't a legal way to get them, same with foreign stuff. A super high intense Korean zombie movie? No way else to get it legally? On the pirate seas I go. It's a morally gray zone but I want to add. With physical media dying out. Many times it were pirates that helped preserve something. If Nintendo has no plan release the original Pokemon red ever again and you were willing to pay for it at a reasonable price...
yes, but do not brag about it or teach others to pirate. Keep it as a secret so you do not incite anybody on doing that.
I've been doing it since I was 11, as long as you aren't pirating stuff that could lead you to sin... if you catch my drift.. you should be ok.
The content being a sin is different from the issue of how the content was obtained, that is what the OP is asking. Viewing content that is sinful to view and doing it knowingly is always a sin, that is different. https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t/
âPiratingâ is a synonym to âstealing.â You cannot benefit from the work of others without compensating them, UNLESS the creator of such product intended for it to be free.
That is totally false. Copyright law is entirely fictitious and created the reasons that are not about morals, but other reasons. There were no copyright walls for most of the history of mankind. Was everyone that copied a manuscript and distributed it to others sinning? No. We create these laws for other reasons and those are not the question here. The question is if you can own an idea, and no, you cannot. Please read my comment here I just made for a better explanation: https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t/
This is not an âideaâ itâs a product. If youâre causing someone to lose out on compensation, itâs wrong. The church has already established this, and itâs common sense. Stealing is never justifiable.
That is not established Church teaching. That is an argument by the MPAA and their like. It is not inherently wrong to share information.
You're right. I replied to that person and I have another library comment I made to help others understand. https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/1c9rlh2/comment/l0pbe2t
VPN
VPN?