Of Two Minds, TBurghout

[Back2Jake]

Some of you know Sue and I have a blog, and have attended it from time to time. I felt like writing a post tonight and the following story comes from thoughts during a walk. After posting on the blog, I thought it might make an interesting topic here....


Of Two Minds

A man walks into a store knowing full well the store is there to sell merchandise. The man looks around the store, marvelling at all the items he sees. Aimlessly he walks up and down the isles, glancing over pieces that catch his attention.

He stops.

He notices he is the only person in the store. For there is no clerk at this store. There is a price on the item he is looking at, and a method for him to pay for the item, but there is no clerk at this store.

At first this strikes him as odd, but slowly brings a smile to his face. He knows this will be his favorite store, where he will save LOTS of money. He is so sure the store will be here for a long long time, he will "bookmark" the address and return often.

The man decides he will "pick up" a few things. He looks at the shopping cart, but decides he will "save" himself the hassle and throw the stuff he wants in his backpack instead. Afterall, there is no clerk in the store, surely they don't really MEAN for him to pay for the items he wants.....

The man leaves the store with a full backpack. No clerk stops him, for there is no clerk or alarm system at this door.

Later that week, the same man is exhibiting his own merchandise at an event. An old woman walks up to him and asks him how much he wants for a particular piece. The man replies and the woman kindly asks him more questions about the item. His attention is distracted but out of the corner of he eye, he catches a child running away with a prized piece of merchandise.

The man can't take off after the child, for it would leave all his items unattended. Instead he tells everyone to be aware of the child, and how he was a victim of theft.

The man remembered not to leave his items unattended (with no clerk) ... after all, he found a store with no clerk and he equated that with "no need to pay". He suspected all the world thought like him. He'd be out of business in no time if no one paid for his merchandise!!

Think about it.......

Is 'Right-click and save' the same as shop lifting?

[GrayBeard Phil]

Toni:

I could write a small book as a reply to your post, but it would not express my opinion any better than this:

Right click and save could be the equivalent of shop-lifting only if you live in a peer culture that sees shop-lifting as a bad behavior ( I am taking about internal personal morality, not legal-criminal-police. )

If you live in a peer group culture that does not look to shop-lifting as a bad thing, (except that it get you trouble with the police) then it isn't.

Sad to say, but I lock my car door in a public parking lot not to prevent a professional car-thief criminal from stealing my car, but to keep the 'honest' folk 'honest'.

Phil

[Woodbutcher68]

Good question.
If you post something on the Internet you are putting it into the public domain. If you don't want to give it away, there are ways to prevent people from "right clicking and saveing" or "Copy and Paste". If you leave it unprotected, it will be taken.
Along the lines of Phil's answer, a few weeks ago, one of my employees informed that he had to go to court the next week and might need a couple of days off. He told me that he had to go to a trial. I figured that he was a witness or involved in some kind of lawsuit. I asked him what kind of trial and he told me it was "nothing bad". I found out that he was on trial for murdering his former boss!
He was found guilty and now I am his former boss.
That's the type of attitude I'm seeing more of these days among young people entering the workplace. Yo them, information theft is not a big deal.

[CanadianScroller]

I wonder what the difference is of us bookmarking a site or downloading it for offline viewing?

There are times when we post pictures on here as references, we don't always include specific credits to the sites we get them from, the embedding code within the forum software often shows us a reference if we care to look.

Some places like tripod or other picture sites will not allow the link and will place a marker there instead.

I really believe this is a personal moral question since there are so many international laws and jurisdictions.

I have no intention of taking an image for personal profit or gain. I do not wish to misrepresent myself by claiming art is mine when it isn't. I even have some public domain photography sites which I can use as reference material.

I do not think many of us could honestly say we have not clipped a pic here or a pic there to put into a little project like a newsletter or an email without getting permission from the original owner. This is a self policing act which we have to be aware of.

Does the end justify the means? Only you can answer that.