Quote:
Originally Posted by TallMomof2
People who download illegally most likely wouldn't be a customer anyway so the publishers haven't lost any revenue. Same with the record companies. The people who download illegal music would've been making recordings of friends' music or recording it off the radio a generation ago.
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That's like saying "it's OK to ride on a train without buying a ticket" on the grounds that nobody is losing out as a result of you doing so. The train is going to run anyway, so where's the harm?
The fallacy in the argument (and in the analogous eBook argument too) is that if everyone took the same attitude, the train WOULDN'T run, and the book WOULDN'T be published. In both cases, by being a "freeloader" the person concerned is preying on the honest people; the ones one whose behalf the train runs and the books is published.
It's an attitude which cannot be ethically justified, IMHO.