[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Is all of that the issue... or is the issue the fact that "young people" (Pogue's words) see pretty much no reason why downloading an illegitimately-obtained file would be wrong? That, after all, seemed to me to be the point of the article.

We've had discussions like this around here (and I fully admit, I played a part in allowing said discussion to get out of hand a few times), and based on those threads, I'd generally concur with Pogue on his conclusion: The younger you are, the less likely you consider downloading or burning something, legally obtained or not, to be "wrong."

If age really is a factor, why is that? Is it a cultural thing? I don't think so. Do young people not understand the concept of fairness? I don't think so. I think it might have more to do with young peoples' having less personal experience with "working for a living," and so do not hold the same value of another person's work as a wage-earner... they cannot (or do not) imagine themselves in the position of being the creator whose work is pirated.

It is strange, however, since young people seem intimately familiar with the concept of successful actors and musicians making money off their work, and they understand that well enough to hope to emulate it themselves someday. So how do you justify wanting to be successful in order to make money, yet pirating the works of successful artists to deny them money?

There is the concept that electronic files are "just a bunch of electrons, which are practically insubstantial, so they're essentially nothing," and therefore essentially worthless. Most arguments for the "rightness" of taking electronic content seem to reflect the idea that since it is "only electrons," they are taking "nothing," you can't make "something" out of "nothing," etc.

This concept seems to be part and parcel of the culture of the digital age, which young people have probably had more exposure to than the culture of wage-earning. In discussions on this subject in this forum, it is clear that many people accept this axiom, while others contend that it is the content held by those electrons that holds its value, and therefore they are not "just worthless electrons," but a medium for valuable content (like the paper holding the printed words of a book).

I tend to think that this is the central paradox that needs to be addressed, before anyone can agree on a definition of "stealing" or "piracy."