Is Copying the Same as Theft?

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Honest Questions From a Simple Man.

We continue the debate regarding the heading 'When is Theft Not Really Stealing' from last week. If you missed it, you might want to start there. Here's the link: http://stuartaken.blogspot.com/2012/03/when-is-theft-not-really-stealing.html

Theo: Last time, we established that there's a general public attitude about petty theft from the place of work that considers such things as the taking of small items of stationery, chatting around the water cooler in work time and printing stuff for charities as not really stealing, you agree?

Dave: Yeah. And we said the bosses do it as well, when they have meetings on the golf course or travel Business Class to conferences, when they could just as easy meet on video conference.

Theo: So, there's a generally accepted feeling that petty theft is simply a part of everyday life in which most people participate?

Dave: Everyone does it.

Theo: Does this extend to such things, I wonder, as borrowing a book from a friend and never returning it?

Dave: That's not fair, but I don't think most people would think of it as theft. I mean, it's usually just because they've forgotten, isn't it?

Theo: How do we feel about copying a music track from a friend's CD so we can play it in our car?

Dave: Happens all the time.

Theo: No doubt. But is it theft?

Dave: How would it be theft? I mean, the guy who owns the CD can copy it legally so he can have a copy in the car and one at home, can't he?

Theo: That's actually not quite as straightforward, legally, as you might think. But forget that for the moment. The point about the guy with the CD is that he's already paid the artist by buying the CD. His friend, however, has made no contribution to the artist, has he?

Dave: I suppose not. But he might decide to buy the whole CD once he's listened to the track, so the artist gets a new fan.  

Theo: On the other hand, he might not. And if he copies the whole CD from his friend's?

Dave: Same goes. He might decide he'll buy the next CD the artist brings out. So, the artist gains.

Theo: Or not, of course. It's a bit tenuous, though isn't it? Justifying this activity on the grounds that it might result in future payment to the artist? There'll be those who decide never to buy anything from that particular artist but still retain the original copied CD.

Dave: Yeah, well, that's the way things are, isn't it? Any case; look at the sort of money pop stars make. They're not going to miss one or two sales, are they?

Theo: So, what makes it okay to steal income from pop stars is the fact that they're already wealthy from performing? Suppose this particular artist is just emerging, has produced the CD at his or her own cost, whilst working nights as a supermarket shelf-filler?

Dave: Well, no, you wouldn't want to do that from someone just starting out, would you?

Theo: Selective theft, then. Interesting idea. Let me ask you, would you go into a shop and steal a CD off the shelf?

Dave: Jeez! 'Course not. That's shop-lifting.

Theo: But it's okay to do exactly the same thing by copying material without paying for it?

Dave: Not the same. If you shop-lift, you're taking from the shop keeper as well. He's already paid for it and you've robbed him of his costs, haven't you?

Theo: Since the legal purchase of the item would also involve the retailer, the only actual difference I see is that the shop keeper hasn't, in that case, lost his expenditure but merely the opportunity of the profit, which is the part of the transaction that keeps him and his family alive.

Dave: Record companies should make their CDs cheaper, then people wouldn't be tempted to copy them, would they?

Theo: So, it's the fault of the supplier? You think it's the cost of the item that makes theft justified? Champagne's ridiculously expensive for what it is; is it okay to steal that as well? At what point would the theft become wrong?

Dave: What do you mean?

Theo: Well, say for example, that the item was sold for £10.00 ($15.68) for, say, 12 tracks? Is that too much to pay?

Dave: It's a lot.

Theo: So, how much would be not too much?

Dave: Hard to say. But I guess I'd pay, say, £6.00 ($9.41).

Theo: And £0.50 ($0.78) per track would stop you copying in the future, would it?

Dave: Probably.

Theo: Theft, then, isn't an absolute but a quality dependent on certain personal judgements about the worth of the object and the deserving nature, or otherwise, of the creating bodies?

Dave: Jeez, you do like to complicate things, don't you?

Theo: Sorry, Dave, I thought I was clarifying them.

You feel it's okay to steal providing the person or organisation you steal from can afford it? That seems to be what you're saying and I simply want to make sure I understand you correctly.

Dave: Well, yeah, except I wouldn't call it theft.

Theo: What would you call it?

Dave: Dunno.

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Please let me have your comments and observations. By the way, apologies for the delay this week: I've been a bit under the weather.

Next time, we'll move on to the next part of the debate, especially as it pertains to written material, which is, after all, what most readers of this blog are involved with.

When is Theft Not Really Stealing?

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Theo: You do the boss a favour, staying at your desk over your lunch break to field an important call for him, and, whilst you're captive, in what's generally your own time, you surf the net. It's company policy that you can do this during your lunch break, provided you don't enter inappropriate sites, of course. You come across an article you've been wanting to read; research for a private project. So, without the time to read it there and then, you print off the five pages with the colour illustrations, on the firm's laser printer so you can take it home to read in comfort. Is that theft?

Dave: What, taking five sheets of office paper and a bit of ink they'll never even notice? You're kiddin', right?

Theo: The question is this: Is it yours to take?

Dave: Hell, man, you're doing the boss a favour in your own time. He owes you, doesn't he? Any case, I bet you waste more paper and ink than that nearly every day by mistake.

Theo: So, you don't think it counts as stealing?

Dave: No way.

Theo: The same, I suppose, goes for those odd paper clips, rubber bands and envelopes you take for personal use?

Dave: Look, everyone does that. You can't call it stealing. The amount they pay for stationery, they'd never even notice, would they?

Theo: And the private letters placed into the post tray to be stamped or franked?

Dave: Maybe in an emergency. You know, when it needs to go today and you don't have a stamp or you can't get out the office for some reason. Once in a while won't do any harm, will it?

Theo: What about that photocopying of the club's agenda for that meeting you've arranged tonight as secretary? A copy of three pages for each of thirty seven members. How about that?

Dave: It's for a good cause, isn't it? I mean, I know the boss doesn't give to that cause, but the firm chooses a charity every year to support, so they don't mind a bit of giving, do they?

Theo: Not, then, a matter of principle? More one of expediency, I suppose?

Dave: Horses for courses, mate. What harm's it do. That sort of thing doesn't hurt the company. Any case, everybody does it.

Theo: And because everybody does it, that makes it acceptable, or right?

Dave: Well, you can't really call it stealing, can you? I mean, stealing's important things, things that cost, not little bits and pieces like that.

Theo: So, just to get this right: everybody does it and they're only small things?

Dave: That's right.

Theo: So. A hundred employees take a hundred sheets, together with the accompanying ink, what, every week, month, year?

Dave: Now you're being daft. Not everyone does that much, do they? I mean that's ten k sheets and a lot of ink. No. It's not like that; it's just occasional and not all the staff do it, do they?

Theo: Not everybody, then?

Dave: Well, no. Some folk aren't interested in that sort of thing. They take other things instead.

Theo: Ah, you mean time? For example, the quarter of an hour they spend talking at the water cooler when they're being paid to work? Or the few minutes each day they arrive late? Or maybe those odd minutes they need for shopping over lunch? That sort of thing?

Dave: That's right. Most people do that sort of thing.

Theo: And that's not stealing, even though they're paid for that time?

Dave: You think the bosses work every hour of every day? Think they're working when they have a  'meeting' on the golf course? Think they're working when they fly business class to some conference they could do by video call?

Theo: I understand your point. So, what you mean when you say the everybody does it, is that the practise of petty theft is rife throughout the structure of the workplace and is accepted simply as a part of daily life?

Dave: Well, I wouldn't put it like that. But, yeah, I suppose that's really what it is when you look at it. I mean, no one works every minute of every day doing what they're paid to do, do they?

Theo: I expect not. In fact, I suspect it would be bad for their mental health if they did. But, my point here is more about what we call such things. What we label this activity. The bosses see their own small thefts as 'perks', the natural reward for their level of commitment. How do the ordinary workers see their own small acts of stealing?

Dave: Most of them see it as getting something more out the bosses, if they think of it at all. You're making more of it than it really is, Theo. It's just part of working life.

Theo: You're probably right. But what that means in reality is that workers, and their bosses, actually approve, even if only by not disapproving, the daily general theft we've discussed.

Dave: Life's too short to worry about things like that.

Theo: But, what concerns me, Dave, is whether the casual acceptance of such petty theft allows some people to consider rather more valuable items taken to be also acceptable. We don't have time to discuss this now. But I'd like to plant the notion that it's the general acceptance of small theft as unimportant that allows some folk to go on to steal the work of others, to see such theft as something normal and of no harm to anyone.

Dave: It's a thought. But, like you say, we best get back to work. The boss is looking over here and glancing at his watch.