Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Let's change your little story except that you didn't pirate the book -- you shoplifted it.
It you really give all the free publicity suggested, your shoplifting probably did benefit the creators of the book. So what? To me, it is still wrong.
The implication of your post is that morality is solely a matter of whether anyone is harmed. If that's what you think, sure, piracy can be seen as a good thing.
A big problem with your hypothetical is that the piracy comes before the reading and the posting. What happens when you read the pirated book and find it to be a fine work from a purely literary standpoint, but hate the author's perspective on life?
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But shop lifting and allowing it has other disadvantages that probably make the utility equation end up on the oher side. And the implication of the post was explicity not that everythin is alllowed that do not harm anyone. The opinion was that we look at the total increase or decrease in utility and decide according to that.