Quote:
Originally Posted by MrPLD
My best move is to replace the word "moral" to "legal" in post #223.
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Paul, I think that everyone would agree with your post #223 if you remove any sense of morality from it, and limit it to legal rights under current copyright law.
But then, what is the point of the comment?
I think that basing one's argument on the moral premise that the author deserves to be compensated for his work has merit. People who pirate just because they can evoke little sympathy.
But many here at MR feel that the current copyright laws extant in all (?) of the civilized world are unjust. So to say that the consumer has no legal right under an unjust law would be to encourage the response, "Yes! That's why the law is unjust! Therefore, it is morally permissible to pirate!"
It's late here, and I'm going to bed. My point is to say that I believe that the author's credible stance would be upon the moral argument that it is just for him to be paid, rather than upon the argument that anyone who disobeys a law is a bad person.
I know little about Australia that doesn't involve the Hawthorn Hawks! (By the way, congratulations on getting your first saint this week!) But here in the US, we have a long history of justifying the refusal to obey laws considered unjust going back to the Declaration of Independence. So it won't get a person far to condemn lawbreaking without showing that the law broken is a just one.