Is any kind of stealing OK?

Depends what you call stealing. The farther the definition is stretched, the more people will think it's OK in some cases.

You might consider MP3 downloading stealing. I don't. You might not consider obtaining monopoly and charging extortionate prices stealing, I do.

 

Stealing is only ok in sporting events that allow it.

Anything worth having is worth working for. For me there is just something satisfying about saving money and buying something on my own.

Stealing someones elses work or plagiarism is just cheating yourself. You lose out on an opportunity to learn something and make yourself better in the process.

I figure someone will come along and post a reason for stealing. Such as a starving family or some sad reason such as every man for himself or peer pressure, or I just did it for kicks it gives me a rush. No matter stealing is stealing and its not a victimless crime. Everyone pays for other peoples dishonesty one way or the other. The cost is just passed on to the consumer.

 

The only case I can think of is if you are stealing something 'back' from someone who stole something from you. But then again that isn't really theft is it?

So short answer: no.

Long answer: no matter what, there is always a victim and unless the item was aquired by theft origionally then there is no justification in stealing it.

 

Stealing is like any mental or physical violence. Someone always suffers. But it's the reason that determines wether it was right or not.

The classical example would be someone who didn't have enough food to even live, stealing some off another to whom all it meant was a small monetary loss.

I also agree with Chev's examples above. Mp3's should be downloadable for a small fee over the net. Right now, you have to buy an album of garbage just to get 2 good songs, making those 2 songs cost you some 6-10 euros a piece. A ridiculous price for 2 songs, as anyone who listens to a bit more music would know (50 songs would amount to ~500€, and anyone listening a bit more music has at least 50-100). And to top it off, you still have to get the illegal mp3's over the net because the piracy protection systems make converting that cd over to your mp3 player or computer, an impossibility. Something is obviously wrong there.

The morality of thieving, obviously, is relative. It's not so simple that if a company has a monopoly in something, selling their unique products for a ridiculously high price, all you need to do is not buy it. I'm sure everyone sees the problem if the monopoly concerned food or water. But for example entertainment is not popular just because it makes money. It's because it actually eases people's minds in these stressful modern days of ours. That someone cannot afford the entertainment of his preference because some company only thinks about profit at any cost, is directly reflected in his quality of life and ability to work. So in essence, stealing from such a company is the same thing as when a starving person steals food for himself. Of course the gravity of this deed is on a completely different scale, but the idea is still pretty much the same.

Who can say when it goes from just making profit to to ripping people off? I can't. I just know mp3's are one such example, not just for the price but for all the extra trouble that shouldn't be suffered by the consumer anyway.

So once again, this is a matter of one's personal viewpoint. There are some generally acceptable cases of theft, such as in Finnish law you can "steal" and use another's property in an emergency situation. But right now we live in a very capitalistic era. A lot of what I would call stealing is legal by several groups and corporations, while a lot of what some individuals do, is called stealing by law and these corporations and seems more like justice to me. Don't get me wrong, piracy and things like that are definitely harmful. And many of the people doing that are thieves and criminals. But not all.

 

Though I have stolen from others as retribution for crimes perpertrated against me, I agree with DHB in that stealing is only OK in sports where it's allowed (eg stealing bases in baseball, stealing the ball from an opponent in a one-on-one tackle in Rugby League etc) or 'stealing' someone's heart

In cases where I have stolen as retribution, I've usually only kept the stolen item for a few days at best before returning it. I also used to shoplift liek mad when I was young but fortunately grew out of that and moved on to find my 'rush' elsewhere.

 

I was a klepto. I stole from banks. No, really. Little things like pens. And I once took, ironically, McGruff the Crime Dog.

Yeah, it was wrong. And no, I don't do it anymore. I was bored, I was young, and wanted to see what I could get away with. I think that is why many people steal.

Stealing is wrong, except maybe in a Robin Hood scenario...

 

Normally I would say no.

But if someone has to steal, I'd rather like to read in the newspaper that an unidentified person stole a diamand from the best secured place in the world without any clues or victims, than reading about how 18 year old kids assaulted a senior citizen and left with 50 Euros.

 

Depends on the circumstances, don't it?

Stealing 'cuz you can, no, that's not cool.

Stealing a loaf of bread because you're starving, well, I won't begrudge you that

 

From what I understand from all the above posts it is not possible to define what stealing is (and hence where to draw a line between crime and no crime) without defining what property is. Take Apeman's example: obviously the 50 € belong to a specific person; accordingly, the theft of this money is bad. But who's the owner of the diamond? The state? The museum? Who is the victim of the crime? The state? The insurance company?

In any case, our attitude towards stealing seems to be more laisez-faire when the victim of the theft is an anonymous, amorphous, faceless mass. Who owns a mp3-file, anyway?

The same is true for taxes and suchlike.

So my question is (without hijacking this thread): what is property? Is property only what is comprehensible for us in amount and allocation? Is there, for example, a decadently high amount of money where we feel that is not right that it all belongs to one human being? Robin Hood, anyone?

Or is property an absolut and unquestionable value without which no society is able to survive for very long?

 

I have to agree Apeman. Hearing about someone stealing something that must have been very difficult to pull off (I.e. stealing a top-of-the-line mercedies) is pretty cool. But muggings are definatly not.

 

Stealth is related to ownership, granted. However, morality of an act is not governed by a particular property law made by a parliament. That would be ridiculous.

I would drag Foradasthar's example further. If we consider copying MP3's to be stealth, then copyright protections are necessarily stealth as well. How? Because you can't make your rightful backup copy.

I firmly believe that one of the purposes of copy protection is to make people wear out their CDs until they don't work and buy new ones for the same extortionate price.

 

In the harsh post war winters in Cologne our dear and long dead cardinal Frings reacted to the immense difficulties to get coal and heating, as well as food, by casting theft in a situation of bitter need as justified, very much to the dislike of the british and american occupation authorities ...

To steal coal and bred then became dubbed "to frings" in Cologne ...

I very much agree with cardinal Frings. On cannot ask a man to please be so principled to starve or freeze and to obey the law - it would clearly be a sign of character - but a very hard thing to do, with a family around.

 

It's also a matter of priorities. Life ranks higher than property. Life is natural, property is a social construct. Some people have, some don't, justly or not. When there's no dire need, that's passable. Note also that those who have more tend to have more and more; and those who have less tend to have less and less. That's how the system is build. However, it's a social model. It's nothing natural. And that's why those who are privileged (let's say) or simply in command of more assets, they have some obligation to those deprived (let's say) or in necessity. And this comes from a man who hated the red colour so much that he wouldn't wear red items of clothing.

 

Of course, Frings saw clearly that life has higher value than property, and found that some socialism is quite alright when the alternative would be that the right of owners of pretious goods - food, coal, vaccines, whatever - to make profit would rank higher than the right to live of the havenots.

The moral argument is crystal clear.

So I find it absolutely ok when iirc South Africa, a country with an AIDS pandemia is pirating hugely expensive medication to treat their infected - and giving a **** for the inventor's property rights. Too bad for the (iirc American) developer, but this is a death-and-life issue for two generations of South-Africans.
The US would do the same if they had a massive epidemia and a company from another country, take France, would insist in getting their generous royalties from the widespread suffering - along the tune: Yay! Business booms, we have an epidemia!

 

while this makes the offense understantable, it doesn't necessarily makes it right imo. but I'm not really one to talk, I've stolen a few books from the school library in my time. hehe.

 

Addressing solely the issue of MP3s and the completely copyright laws that weren't written with today's electronic media in mind, how does one go about getting outdated laws changed to reflect the present and accommodate the future? What does one do in the interim? While the arrangements and contracts that music companies have with artists, not to mention the hold they have over consumers, might be morally and common-sensically equivalent to theft, they still have the weight of law behind them. How do we fix that?

 

About mp3's; if you read cd's property rights and all of that you'll see that is forbiden to copy and even to borrow (sp?). So if I download a mp3 I know that someone made a copy of one song, or not? If you read again those rights doens't say anything about put the song in a hard drive, so the thing here is: if I hear the song while I am recording the song to a hard drive, what's that? copying? Anyway, I've "found" the song on internet, so, someone else made the copy, why I am the one stealing? or why I am the one who doens't pay copyrights? I think there's some legal issues here that have to be fixed.
Tv cable here is expensive and is not worthy, so if you go to a house is not rare to see that he "passes" the signal to a neighbour or even to 3 more people, making the cost lower by dividing the price. By legal means, that's stealing, if you ask people who do that they say that is too expensive, and if I say "but that's stealing, you could go to jail for that" they say: I don't think so, the cable guy and I made a deal. Then, who in this situation is stealing?
We live in a country where politicians steal tons of money and they never pay for it, so mentality, thinking, whatever, makes people think that they have the right to do something back, by doing things like the cable or if a cop catches you speeding you "pass" him 10 bucks and nothing happened. Few days back some protesters (piqueteros) went to a MacDonnald restaurant and "forced" the owner to gave them books and milk for "their" cause (give poor people food, but some say that they don't really do that); by "hijaking" the restaurant, forcing people not to come in, and forcing the owner to give what they want; what's that? is not stealing?
Stealing is not ok, but most of the time there are situations where it seems to be ok according to different points of view.

 

Ah, but the times of Cardinal Frings were different from today. A loaf of bread is a material item. You take it away and it's somebody else's loss. You can eat it, he can't.

What about mp3 or a licence for medication? You take it away - but the counterpart still has it. You can listen to the music, your "victim" can as well. You as well as the original owner of the patent can produce medicaments. So where is the theft? Loss of earnings? How to measure?

We have some old laws and apply them to new situations - as a result there's a gap between what we feel is right and what the law demands. We would need some new laws (or at least new interpretations of existing laws), it seems.

Nevertheless, the concept of property still makes sense: who wants to invest into medical research if all licences originating from this are public property and will yield no money? Who will donate his time and efforts in creating new music if it is no longer possible to earn money with it? Stealing always harms someone regardless of morality.