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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I've never accepted the contention that illegal sharers are non-buyers. They are just buyers who've found a free ride. If they want a product (be it music, e-books, or anything else), and they find they
cannot steal it, they generally
will buy it. They rarely just go without. If what you said was true, there would be no industry for anything, because
all goods would be stolen, or they wouldn't be bought at all. Therefore they really are costing producers revenue.
(This obviously doesn't cover the people who collect illegal material by the terabyte, just because they can. I'm talking about someone who likes and wants a certain product.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by TallMomof2
You can't legislate morality. There will always be people who want something for nothing so why penalize the rest of us?
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Look at this from the proper perspective: It's the pirates that are penalizing you, by taking things for free that you had to pay for, and thereby causing protective laws to be written.
You can legislate morality...
social morality. And you have to demonstrate to the majority of society, i.e. individuals, that the social morality must take precedence over individual morality. The laws are put in place, not because someone wants to make your life harder, but because someone wants an artist to be paid for their work. That is pro-social, and any individual who wants to deny another individual due compensation for their work is anti-social.
Think about it this way... if the existence of pirates means tough laws to control them, then it's not the laws that are "penalizing" you... it's the pirates. If it weren't for the activities of pirates, there would be no need for laws that "penalize" anybody.