Software piracy satisfies the colloquial understanding of theft as the act of obtaining something without paying for it, but not the colloquial understanding of theft as the act of depriving someone else of the thing you’ve obtained. Purchasing a software license satisfies the colloquial definition of ownership as the right to do something after having paid for that right, but not the colloquial understanding of ownership as the right to do anything you want with what you have purchased. Software piracy isn’t theft in the legal sense, and purchasing a software license is not a transfer of ownership in the legal sense.
Memes like this are just pointless quibbling over words (barely more sophisticated than “You’re a doodoohead!” “No, you’re the doodoohead times a thousand!”) and contain zero insight into the morality or legality of software piracy or software licensing.
But while you’ve eloquently pointed out the inherent flaw in the definitions we use in this discussion, i could use your same argument against you, reducing your argument to:
“I don’t like this meme”
Because memes, sayings, chants, etc exist to boil down a nuanced concept into a quick statement of belief, you could nitpick em, all of em all day, and while a little mental flaggelation is fun we’d have spent that day missing the point.
Pedantica aside, do you disagree with the meaning behind the saying?
Pointing this out isn’t clever.
Software piracy satisfies the colloquial understanding of theft as the act of obtaining something without paying for it, but not the colloquial understanding of theft as the act of depriving someone else of the thing you’ve obtained. Purchasing a software license satisfies the colloquial definition of ownership as the right to do something after having paid for that right, but not the colloquial understanding of ownership as the right to do anything you want with what you have purchased. Software piracy isn’t theft in the legal sense, and purchasing a software license is not a transfer of ownership in the legal sense.
Memes like this are just pointless quibbling over words (barely more sophisticated than “You’re a doodoohead!” “No, you’re the doodoohead times a thousand!”) and contain zero insight into the morality or legality of software piracy or software licensing.
You do realize you’re in the programming humor community, right?
But while you’ve eloquently pointed out the inherent flaw in the definitions we use in this discussion, i could use your same argument against you, reducing your argument to:
“I don’t like this meme”
Because memes, sayings, chants, etc exist to boil down a nuanced concept into a quick statement of belief, you could nitpick em, all of em all day, and while a little mental flaggelation is fun we’d have spent that day missing the point.
Pedantica aside, do you disagree with the meaning behind the saying?