Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Someone in another thread has just informed me that I haven't lost income from pirates "because I never had the money in the first place". I would liken this to me giving someone a pot of paint and saying "paint my fence and I'll give you $100". Then, when my fence is painted, I turn around and say "no, I'm not going to pay you." What's the problem? The painter hasn't lost any money because he never had it in the first place (according to my friend in the other thread)...
The problem of course is that I've taken advantage of the painter's labour and then reneged on my part of the contract - to pay for the painter's time in doing the painting. This is exactly analogous to piracy. You're taking advantage of the creator's labour, but refusing to pay for the work that you've benefited from.
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My thoughts exactly. It is silly to turn it around and say "the creator hasn't lost anything" because the pirate would never have bought the item in question, anyway". The only angle one should look at this is "the pirate now has something that doesn't belong to him, obtained by illegal means", or "the pirate enriched himself". That is the bottom line.