Is piracy a sin?

I talked abouth this topic with a priest that is a friend of mine. He said that downloading
movies,music, etc. from internet isn't a sin (if it's only for my personal use), a sin would be
if I purchase that content buying it from a pirate or if I sell it myself (sorry for my english).

Even though I really trust that priest I'd like to know what you think about this. As far as I'm
concerned is not a sin.

God bless you all

Hmm, I was thinking to post about this today, guess this post came in a very right time. It is a
very, very contentious topic as the one poster said, or outright theft as the other stated. I will try
to point you to both arguments done to say that it is sinful (some reach to say even mortal) or
the opposite, that it isn't sinful at all.

Those that say piracy is a sin:

First, the most recent appointment published by the Church is from the YouCat, point 429:

Not just PLAGIARISM is theft. The theft of intellectual property begins with copying other
students' work in school, continues in the illegal taking of materials from the Internet, applies to
the making of unauthorized copies or trafficking in pirated copies in various media, and extends
to business dealings in stolen concepts and ideas. Every acquisition of someone else's intellectual
property demands the free consent and appropriate remuneration of the author or inventor.

Another point done by the proponents that it is a sin is that, despite that you are copying, you
are not paying what is due to the person that worked to do what you are pirating, as states the
Bible. We are obliged to follow any human law that is not under direct contradiction against what
he are taught by God, unless that law is unjust.

For the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is threshing,” and, “A worker deserves
his pay.” 1 Tim 5:18

So, by copying and not paying the due pay, we would be breaking the Seventh Commandment
by stealing.

Those that say piracy is not a sin:

Firstly, something that is a sin must be regardless of time. To put context, we have copyright laws
only since the XVIII century. For Moral theology, as is based on natural law, property is divided
into material and intellectual, which is followed then by positive law. While the positive law of
most countries understands the violation of both are crimes, for moral theology there is certainly
a sin in the violation of material property (i.e stealing material property), but not always when
the violation is made to intellectual (or immaterial) property. So much so that the concern of
positive law in defending intellectual property came into existence only much later. If we are to
presume that copying something is necessarily stealing, most people alive before those laws
even came to existence would be into great trouble. Here in Brazil we have a great book on Moral
Theology by Fr. Del Greco, OFMCAP that discusses the thesis that it would not be a sin, by stating
that:

“After publication, it is likely that by natural law a manuscript, speech or secret of an invention
has become public property and another may publish them, especially in a foreign language and
in another region. There are, however, authors who are likely to deny it. [Teologia Moral (Moral
Theology),1959]

This means that, after something has been published (in the sense of being made avaliable to
the public), there is no way to break any type of intellectual property as it has been made public.

Regardin the problem with recency of laws: in the beginning (France, for example), copyright
laws did not extend to much longer than 10 years, but got extended longer and longer until we
see the bizarre things that happen with, like, Mickey Mouse not going into Public Domain in the
US due to lobby by Disney. The creation of positive legislation about copyright was the opening
of a Pandora's box, as it was as lucrative as it was easily controlled by the state. After all, the
presses were huge machines, operated by skilled personnel, who could only remain commercially
viable if they maintained a relatively fast print rate. No one would buy a machine and hire skilled
(and well-paid) staff; printers were always, for obvious reasons, well-informed and well-
organized, and often adhered to radical ideologies) to keep them idle. So everything, or almost
everything, had to be done in the open, and it was tremendously easy for the state to control
and punish violations of hard copy legislation; anyone who illicitly copied would always make a
large number of copies to make the process less expensive, the letters used would be literally
the same as those used in all the books of that printer, etc. You couldn't circumvent the law and
get away with it.

As soon as the first deadline given by the law had expired, the booksellers did not want to release
such a practical chicken from the golden eggs, and began to demand that copyright persist even
after their death. In France, the Revolution enacted at the end of the century legislation restricting
copyrights up to ten years after the author's death, and ever since, always appealing to the merit
and need of poor writers, the legislation only made increase this deadline.

This was made possible by the peculiar conditions we described earlier, and made sense within
them. After all, the violation of the copy restriction (which ironically has been conventionally
called copyright, “copy right”) would necessarily be done on a literally industrial scale for profit.
Not only would it not be worth it, it made no sense to make a single hard copy of a book, even
for its own use. Within this medium of large competing commercial enterprises, copyright law
made full sense and was lawful and valid, as state regulation of the market for the public good.
A printer was, as a rule, obliged in conscience to respect those limitations set by the state.
The exact reasoning of book copyright was applied to records for the same reasons when the
phonographic press emerged; copying a disc was as or more laborious than copying a book,
economies of scale operated the same way, etc. The difference, which soon also reached the print
media, was the decrease in the cost of subsequent editions. In other words, it has become
cheaper to reprint a book (or to press another edition of a disc) than to do it for the first time,
because it has become cheaper to store printing plates (or phonographic matrices) than to
assemble a New with movable types. It should be noted that this change of circumstances has
favored the maintenance of copyright even longer.

(Personal) Objection to saying that

copying is stealing and not paying
what is due to the worker:
If you made a copy from something purchased before, it has had to be (presumably) paid, much
like the book that we read in the library has been paid by someone in order to be there. Both
would be hurting any potential profit, like people state today when state money that has not
been gained by selling things that end up pirated anyway.The person who gave the book freely
did not necessarily seek consent from the author, even though they would probably Same would
be from its origin, could have been stolen, could have been bought with money obtained with
wrong means, etc. Google Jimmy Akin piracy for those wanting to hear more detail about the
reasonable point that copying would not make it outright piracy.

We should not do it regardless, out of divine commandment to obey human law, but I do not
see it as inherently sinful, it as much as is reading a book from a library, because it has to be (or
reasonably have been) paid at some point. Sometimes, it can not only be justifiable but necessary.
In my workfield, books and articles most of the time are copied, because either they are
unavailable in my country (or tremendously costly to import), or only a single copy has been
bought to be used by dozens of students, while the articles that are published by the very same
work of each scientist in the world are not paid. Even worse, those that want to access the
published results many times are obliged to pay, despite public money being used to fund those
researches, locked behind a paywall out of publisher greed. Regardless of all of what the
European Union has been doing, at least this they are doing right: they are pushing more and
more towards a model that is completely free and open access, provided that the research has
been funded. Even Harvard cannot put up with the prices of journal subscription because their
prices are, simply put, outrageous.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-
prices

Long story short: it depends. If you need to discuss this further in Spanish, feel free to reach me.
My Spanish is a bit rusty but I'm sure we'll be able to understand each other (am Brazilian).
Edit: grammar, forgive me if there is something wrong here and there.

Just a heads up, though I don’t think the Youcat is wrong here, it does contain some highly
questionable material

I think it's complicated, because it is so different than theft in the traditional sense. If I steal
your horse, you're down one horse. If someone downloads your Netflix special, no one is
down one Netflix special. What it comes down to is intellectual property, which is actually a
fairly contentious topic. So, for example, some Catholic social thought scholars argue that
the "preferential option for the poor" outweighs certain medicines being intellectual property
that can be patented and kept at artificially high prices. Not the same thing as downloading a
CD, but it illustrates that intellectual property is not treated with the same sanctity as real-
world property. I'm also not sure that artists make less money because of downloading. Do
they seem poorer? On the other hand, people being unwilling to pay for things in the end may
make it impossible for some people to pursue art. Exceeeeeeept, I saw two bands this summer
and the tickets were 160 a piece. I don't think rock stars are actually starving. I even worry
about spending money on entertainment BECAUSE I don't want to enrich the companies that
produce it, being that they can be so cancerous on society. But here's my confession: I
download British documentaries because American documentaries are garbage. It's the only
way I can see them.

I struggled with this for a long time and decided that it probably is. So now, instead of pirating
TV and comics, I just don't watch TV and read comics at all because I refuse to pay for
entertainment (I'm a poor student) and because I don't want to give money to Netflix and Marvel
since I hate their current politics (abortion and feminism). So it turns out I have a lot of free time
on my hands now but it is a struggle. When it comes to pirating something like overpriced
textbooks (though here, it's not as ridiculous as in America, from what I hear), I don't really think
about that twice and I certainly don't feel bad about it.

I think it's a sin because you're breaking a law and because a labourer is worthy of his hire.

For the scripture saith: Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn: and, The labourer
is worthy of his reward. 1 Timothy 5:18
Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that
are, are ordained of God.
Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist,
purchase to themselves damnation. Romans 13:1-2

do you think that priests of an advanced age are kind of clueless about this?

Maybe they just dont understand or think about how much work is put on those things (music,
games, movies and etc) because it's easy to get, there's amounts of it and they're not "physical"
things. It may seem like something simple to produce.
If you live in my country (brazil) i could also presume that they may still think that piracy is not
that relevant because for some year it was something kinda "normal" around here and they
could still have this mindset. Things were too expensive for us back in the day, and so ppl relied
on piracy to get access to those things.

I see your point. I live in Chile and here piracy is also very common. Once upon a time I talked
about it with another priest and he also doesn't consider it a sin.

So I guess I have a sin to confess next time. Thanks for your help and God bless.

I mean, sometimes a pprice just isnt right. paying hundreds of dollars for some college textbooks
imo is a scam and is basically stealing your money

I would say it’s theft unless the creator offers it for free

You would have to really abused the concept of theft to make piracy fit

I was told that both hipotesys are valid, and if you can defend it with good arguments then you
follow the one you judge moral. In doubt, follow the law. Personally I am not sure, but I prefer
not to indulge in it. Anyway, usually it is venial because of smallness of matter.

Yes, I think it is a sin. As such I avoid pirated movies/games/etc. If I am in the presence of another
and they decide to watch a pirated movie, I will offer to buy it on a steaming service. If they don't
let me...then I buy/rent it when I get home lol. It can be a sin that is hard to avoid these days, but
I try to make sure the owner gets the payment that they are entitled to one way or another.

It’s not theft, because thievery has an ancient definition which piracy just doesn’t fit into. So it is
wrong inasmuch as it is a violation of the civil law, not because it is a violation of the
commandment not to steal.

Civil law is a strange thing. Think of piracy like speed limits. There’s going 60 on a residential
street, then there’s going 65 on a highway that says speed limit 60. To some degree, the
legislators and the interested parties expect you to perform minor breaches of the law. That
would seem, in both the case of minor speeding, and piracy for the sake of convenience, to make
it questionable whether there is sin involved.

Is stealing a sin?

The question is, is piracy stealing?

I think it’s only a sin in countries where piracy is illegal and this is enforced (as an unenforced law
is not a law at all according to Catholic theology). Luckily, I live in Canada where pirating music
is completely legal and pirating other software is in a grey area (and unenforced).

Still, I personally try to use it for things that I absolutely need, not for leisure. For example,
spending money on software for school projects or textbooks (which cost hundreds of dollars
and overcharge students) I find okay, but using it to binge watch a TV series or download a video
game seems unnecessary.