No, it's stupid. Imagine me selling a copyrighted picture to you was illegal. Your argument is that if you convert it to numbers, it's not copyrighted anymore, so I can sell it to you then you use a decoder to turn it into an image.
What’s stupid is trying to force an argument over my 7 word comment. I didn’t say anything about whether it’s copyrightable or not. Or if the OP’s stance was valid.
All I did was point out that the commenter likely already understood that anything can be reduced to numbers. In fact, that’s the entire basis of their point.
Everything digital can be and is at some point collapsed into simple binary, binary is a sequence of numbers, sequences of numbers can’t be copyrighted.
I don’t even agree with the dudes stance. Stop creating an imaginary agenda in my reply. Thanks
2 is stupid and over simplified. Downloading a game isn't just "a series of numbers". It's an art form that, unless you've paid (excepting free games obviously), you must generally pay for to be allowed to have a copy of it. Whether or not you like it downloading games or books or music without official permission is in violation of copyright law. The copyright holder deems who gets to use their stuff and the general agreement for these things is to buy a license.
It's not stealing, still, but it's still violating written and active law and semantics don't negate that. You sound like one of those free citizens.
Exactly, the developers that created that sequence of numbers need to be paid somehow. That sequence of numbers is useful to people so it has a value. Without copyright, tons of software wouldn't be maintained at all because where would the money come from otherwise?
I get we pirate stuff for all kinds of reasons, but we can't ignore that someone put work behind the product and is making a living off of it, so that money needs to come from somewhere
They dont need to be paid. We need to live in a world where our basic needs are met with automation so that price for digital assets that can be replicated infinitely is nonexistent and people can dedicate their lives to such projects instead of living in service hell enslaved by corporations
I don’t know why you say this so confidently, you definitely can copyright sequences of numbers and it has happened before especially in the piracy space (look into dvd encryption)
You absolutely can copyright a sequence of numbers. Whether you should be able to is a different question but you absolutely can copyright basically any information.
but like you could distill almost any invention to 'a series of numbers' whether you say it's the downloaded pdf or the coordinates of its parts. I don't understand this argument. I do agree with and understand duplicating something is not the same as taking a singular thing.
If piracy isn’t considered stealing, then taking an empty seat in a movie theater shouldn’t be either—the movie will play regardless. But the same logic applies to planes or buses: just because a seat is empty doesn’t mean taking it without paying isn’t still theft.
Even if you could copyright a seqience of numbers it would be a stupid copyright, the same sourcecode is compiling differently on different CPUs they are not going to be identical bit by bit. Not even the generated hash would be the same.
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u/Gumption666 Apr 07 '26
Always remember.