Ok, thanks for the engaging discussion. Goodbye.

Could we stop having this meta-debate about what a person who is not either of us meant, and instead could you comment on the substance of my post?

I don’t know how the original poster meant it, but one possible way to interpret it (which is coincidentally my opinion) is that the concept of intellectual property is a scam, but the underlying actual legal concepts are not. Meaning, the law defines protections for copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets, and each of those has their uses and are generally not “scams,” but mixing them all together and packaging them up into this thing called intellectual property (which has no actual legal basis for its existence) is the scam. Does that make sense?

For someone who bitches all over this thread about people strawmanning their position, this is a pretty fucking great reply.

Hint: one can be pissed about people throwing around the not-based-in-legal-reality term “intellectual property.” One can be pissed about people using it as part of a strategy to purposely confuse the public into thinking that copyright infringement is the same as theft, a strategy which has apparently worked mightily well on you. One can be all of those things, and yet still feel that copyright infringement is wrong and no one should be entitled to “literally everything someone else creates.”

What you posted was a textbook definition of a straw man.

My brother/sister in Christ, everyone in this discussion is talking about copyright infringement. That is the actual legal name for what we colloquially refer to as “piracy,” according to, you know, the law, which you previously referenced as something we should look to.

You say “ask the dictionary” — multiple dictionary definitions as well as Wikipedia say that theft requires the intent to deprive the original owner of the property in question, which obviously doesn’t apply to copyright infringement of digital works.

You say “ask the law” — copyright infringement is not stealing, they are literally two completely different statutes, at least in the US.

So, what the hell are you talking about? Copyright infringement is not theft.