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Originally Posted by BoldlyDubious
The viewpoint on piracy pushed forward by content providers (e.g., movie production firms) implies something that they don't want us to realize. Precisely, the fact that "illegal download = theft" implies that we are all entitled to a free replacement for every work (book, music, movie, ...) that we legally download, don't like, and don't want to keep.
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Too much of a stretch; too many jumps to conclusions in your explanation.
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According to content providers, every time you play content (e.g., a movie) without having paid the provider for it, you are stealing.
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Nope; they claim that acquiring access to the content is stealing, regardless of whether or not you use that access.
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So I make the following proposal:
[B]Let's go on making "piracy" a crime akin to theft of physical goods (which is what content providers want).
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No, they don't. They really, really don't. They want piracy to be declared a criminal, not civil, form of copyright violation; they want the copyright-violation penalties, not the petty theft penalties that would be relevant if "downloading an ebook" were legally equivalent to "steal a pbook."
Also, they want to retain the right to file civil lawsuits instead of or in addition to criminal ones, so they can get damages. They don't want every downloader of a few dozen MP3s to be hit with a $500 fine and six month's of community service; they want BIIIG penalties. And they can't get that if the "piracy" is treated like replacements for physical objects.