Quote:
Originally Posted by Hellmark
Ah, but there is a difference. With your money example, you then can get a physical analog. Just because the form that you used to gain access to the money was intangible, doesn't mean that the money itself is not, regardless of if you touch it. Also, theft is defined, as pointed out many times in this thread already, theft isn't just taking something, but taking something and depriving the rightful owner of it.
Hell, theft is "the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it". If I download a ebook from someone, I've not deprived anyone of that book. The person I got it from still has their copy, and what ever rights they have to that copy (which could be none, full ownership, or in between like a license to be able to use it with limitations). The only thing that can be argued is that the content owner may not get money from me now if I got it through nonlegit means. But that argument would have to depend on the idea that I wouldn't pay for the item after downloading it, and that I would have paid for it in the first place, which those two completely nullifies the deprivation argument.
So, please, in the future, include a bit more thought into your argument.
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So, taking something you have no right to is fine in your book?