[ SECRET POST #2496 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2496 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 071 secrets from Secret Submission Post #357.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Well, now you're running right back into the old debate over whether it IS stealing. I can remember a time when this was very much an open question, and the fact that the entertainment industry has managed to get it declared legally so does not close the debate, it merely puts the authorities on their side of it.

Why exactly is theft wrong in the first place? My answer to that would be "Because it deprives the owner of the item itself (and by extension whatever time, effort and resources they put into creating or obtaining it) and any use or profit they may potentially have gained from it in the future." (You'll note that I do not include in my definition any mention of the owner's feelings on the matter. As far as I'm concerned they're completely irrelevant to the question of theft. Making someone unhappy may not be a nice thing to do, but it is not a crime.)

At any rate, when an item is pirated, it remains in the owner's possession, and they can still use it themselves or sell it to anyone who's willing to pay. And all indications seem to be that they can and do still find people who will pay--possibly, depending on whose figures you believe, more than they would if there was no piracy.

Thus, the piracy argument is ultimately more philosophical than it is economic. The type of person who stands on principle without regard to the practical outcome thinks it's wrong because they feel that nobody should take something without the owner/creator's permission, even if that person has an effectively unlimited supply and is not harmed in any measurable way by the action. To a pragmatist, all that matters is that they benefit and all anyone else suffers for it is principled indignation, which (being pragmatists) they don't consider very important.

ON THE OTHER HAND, none of this necessarily speaks to what anyone does or doesn't "deserve" or is entitled to. That's a whole other ball of wax.

[quantumreality]

The thing that has always bothered me is how effectively the RIAA and hangers-on have managed to essentially criminalize what is a civil tort.