Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Not paying for what you have taken/used is taking away the income of the provider.
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I used thousands of books in my youth that I didn't pay for. Is that immoral too? Was I "stealing" from the author by borrowing all those books from friends, or by buying fifty books for $5 at rummage sales? The author and publisher never got any payment for those, either.
Is the real issue "consuming entertainment without paying the creators"--in which case, libraries are immoral--or is it "creators have a moral right to demand limits to their readership?"
Saying, "but you COULD email an ebook to a thousand people, so you should be penalized just as much for emailing it once," is like saying, "you COULD use that kitchen knife to murder someone, so you should face attempted murder charges for waving it around in your living room." It's talking about crimes that haven't happened, that are possible with the same tools.