Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
They technically can be of course, but the primary question to ask if why anyone thinks that it's right to take stuff that they haven't paid for?
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For the same reason they think it's reasonable to watch TV without paying for it (there is no TV tax in the US), listen to music at a friend's house or on the radio (or overheard from the neighbor's barbecue), take a book left in a box in the mailroom of an apartment complex, read dozens of greeting cards at a store without buying any of them, look up a chart at the library without checking out the book, read yesterday's newspaper that someone left on the bus, visit a coffee shop with free wifi and read blogs for two hours, watch a video at syfy.com, or browse the murals painted on the sides of buildings.
There has never been an expectation of "you will pay for every bit of entertainment and information you experience." There is no sharp easy line that says, "THIS bit of media is okay to enjoy for free; THAT media must be paid for."
There are specific requirements attached to specific bits of content distributed in some ways--but there's no definable *rule* about that. There is no "you must pay for all the books you read." Nor "must pay for all the movies you watch." Not even "must pay for all the movies you watch in the theatre"--when I was a member of a Rocky Horror cast, cast members had the right to watch any movie at that theatre, and bring a friend for free when they did so.
Yes, this was at the permission of the theatre owner. However, there was no hint of an ethical requirement to pay for those viewings; the ethical thing, as far as everyone was concerned, was to coordinate a satisfactory deal with the person who had the legal right to allocate permission to view.
Saying, "why would you think you have the right to view/read/listen to copyrighted material without coordinating a mutually satisfactory arrangement with the person who controls the legal right to access to that material" sound
ridiculous. And it's obviously not as simple as, "why would you think you can use what you haven't paid for?"