Hi There
I’m not saying for a moment that its legal or moral or good, just that it is not theft and that people who do it for the main shouldn’t be criminalised.
“Can we change that to say "Unauthorized redistribution is theft"?”
I don’t think we can. Unauthorised redistribution covers such a wide range, from the innocent to the extreme.
I don’t think my sister is a thief because in 1990 she gave me a cassette copy of Madonna’s album, but that is clearly a case of unauthorised redistribution.
You can’t be hypocritical about these issues, either you have a blanket definition that applies in all cases or you don’t.
Something happened with the digital that meant that information could be copied without error. This is a huge change, and our moral and legal and social attitudes haven’t kept up pace – our attitudes are in the past and our technology racing away into the future.
I think that the first place we need to address this schism is at the unauthorised duplication issues and not the issues about distribution.
Consider these facts about the proposition:
A steals X from B:
A no longer owns X
X is no longer owned by A.
B now owns X
Now consider the facts about the proposition: A copies X from B without A's consent.
A continues to own X
X is owned by A
X is owned by B
B continues to own X
This difference is fundamental at a very essential level. Theft involves depriving duplication doesn’t. Duplication in some sense adds to the world in a way that theft never could. (There are arguments about “depravation of sale” I think these are very week)
The attitudes and systems that worked for millennia with regards to physical things (steeling, selling, lending. Owning, giving…) simply do not apply to the digital. And there are deep reasons why this is so.
We have to change these attitudes as a social, legal, moral and economic system.
I would like it stated that I don’t endorse piracy in any of its varied forms. Our company has lost and continues (checks Shareaza… yep) to loose direct profit because of piracy.
But, whatever unauthorised copying is, it isn’t theft.
This concepts and exploitations (DRM…) by the MPA, RIAA, BPI will in a few decades be considered laughable.. Our grandchildren will look back and say “You mean you could go to jail for sharing something?”
Now I really should do some work!
Mat