Is breaking copyright law a sin?

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Are Christians bound to the laws of their country?

Making illegal copies of films, music, books and games
Downloading and seeding torrents
Using someone else's program code without license
Plagiarism (which is like breaking 9th Commandment)

Are the things listed above sinful?

Does it depend on whether we're making money from it?

See also: How should a christian evaluate whether a particular action a sin or not? — StackExchange saddens dancek, Sep 07 '11 at 09:38
@Caleb, I don't agree, it's not a duplicate, since there may be other answers, which will move question from proposed subset. — Maksym Gontar, Sep 07 '11 at 11:23
@MaxGontar: If there are things outside of the subset they should be asked in separate questions and demonstrate how they are not a subset rather than posing the general group like the title of this one suggests. Also remember that most is X a sin questions are considered off topic. By generalizing this into a category I was trying to rescue the topic from simply being closed as off topic. — Caleb, Sep 07 '11 at 11:27
I've always thought if you have to ask if something is stealing, you already know the answer is yes. — user, Sep 21 '11 at 02:25
@iterationx, that's fine, making mistakes is in human nature. — Maksym Gontar, Sep 21 '11 at 11:54
@DantheMan my friend, it's not a stealing, can you make a difference of stealing a car, money, wife etc and stealing a song, game, film? Stealing isn't a right term, as for me. It's rather releasing content from a poor greedy mind it was produced by :) — Maksym Gontar, May 10 '12 at 20:40
@MaxGontar: Old question, I know, just wanted to point out that under all traditional and a lot of modern definitions of stealing, piracy does fall under it. Just because someone's greedy, rich or whatever does in no way make it righteous to steal from them. — David Mulder, Jun 16 '14 at 13:23
The real question is: Is copyright law a just law or even a law at all? Since it's unclear, the Catholic moral principle "lex dubia non obligat" ("a doubtful law does not oblige") applies. — Geremia, Feb 01 '16 at 19:25
@DanielPendergast U.S. Copyright Law does not classify copyright infringement as theft. Besides, theft is depriving someone of his property, and one is not deprived of his property when information is copied. See my answer here, esp. the link to N. Stephan Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property (free audiobook). — Geremia, Feb 01 '16 at 19:33

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:56

5

This issue is really just a sub-set of a much larger issue. See my answer on Are Christians bound to the laws of their country? for a defense of why Christians are bound to follow the laws of their countries whether or not they agree or disagree with them.

Whether or not some of the items you list would or would not fall under a biblical definition of "theft" and thus run afoul of one of the ten commandments, breaking a civil law is still something we're instructed against according to Romans 13:1. Hence breaking civil laws and ethical standards is also disobedience to God, which is sin.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:56

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answered Sep 07 '11 at 09:43

Caleb

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I think that although from your point of view this question is just a subset of the other question, still there may be other answers. However thank you for your answer, it worth pondering. – Maksym Gontar Sep 07 '11 at 11:24
Lex dubia non obligat. (A doubtful law does not bind.) is also another moral principle that comes into play here. – Geremia Jun 19 '14 at 21:41

Is breaking copyright law a sin?

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