Mm? What words are you talking about? I do contend that ‘pirate’ is a useful and concise verb for ‘obtain a file for free over the internet’. (Although, now that I think about it, that’s not what it technically means, and ‘filesharing’ is probably a better word for the act. Then again, ‘fileshare’ isn’t commonly used as a verb.)
“Theft” and “Piracy” are both Bad Words in this context. “Theft” because it doesn’t actually apply, “Piracy” because it fails to carve reality at the joints (lumps high-seas theft and murder with copying).
The word you are looking for is “Copy”. Nice and short, captures all the important aspects, doesn’t have too much political or moral connotation.
The possibility of the rise of a sinister figure in the future that visits vengeance upon everyone who has ever demonstrated sympathy for copyright infringement doesn’t really push up my probability estimate, sorry.
(Really, by the most likely way I can think of this causing trouble is if any of a certain group of powerful organisations that I won’t name here gets pissed off at me and decides to come after me with every single thing they can dig up. But that’s still a really small possibility and this thread will be the least of my worries if it really comes to that.)
So it’s fine to discuss the morality of infanticide and baby-eating, but IP infringement is taboo? :P
No, but you should Taboo most of the words usually used, because they are not useful.
Mm? What words are you talking about? I do contend that ‘pirate’ is a useful and concise verb for ‘obtain a file for free over the internet’. (Although, now that I think about it, that’s not what it technically means, and ‘filesharing’ is probably a better word for the act. Then again, ‘fileshare’ isn’t commonly used as a verb.)
That’s true, it is just perhaps not a useful verb in this context because there are moral connotations.
“Theft” and “Piracy” are both Bad Words in this context. “Theft” because it doesn’t actually apply, “Piracy” because it fails to carve reality at the joints (lumps high-seas theft and murder with copying).
The word you are looking for is “Copy”. Nice and short, captures all the important aspects, doesn’t have too much political or moral connotation.
Duly noted.
Taboo? No, there’s no taboo. It’s a question of honesty being (potentially) instrumentally detrimental to you!
The probability of that is really astronomically small in this case, but point taken.
It does seem that way. But who knows what the future may bring? Words on the internet have a nasty habit of sticking around.
The possibility of the rise of a sinister figure in the future that visits vengeance upon everyone who has ever demonstrated sympathy for copyright infringement doesn’t really push up my probability estimate, sorry.
(Really, by the most likely way I can think of this causing trouble is if any of a certain group of powerful organisations that I won’t name here gets pissed off at me and decides to come after me with every single thing they can dig up. But that’s still a really small possibility and this thread will be the least of my worries if it really comes to that.)