[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With the very greatest respect, acidzebra, moral issues lie at the heart of it.

I do agree in part, just not about where those moral issue lie - I think they lie on both sides of the fence, both with content consumers and with current content owners (as distinct from content producers).

Originally Posted by HarryT

Let me ask you this: why don't you steal food rather than buy it from a shop? I would hazzard a guess that it's not because you're afraid of the punishment if you're caught stealing, but because you think that it's fundamentally wrong to steal.

Harry, I am very pessimistic about human nature. I think enlightened self-interest is the best you can hope for in people. Even when people perform completely altruistic deeds I always look at it in terms of "what do they get out of it?" - and usually the answer in that case is they get to feel better about themselves. So the reason that shoplifting is less prevalent than copying mp3s is related to the fact that in shoplifting you do have to take physical objects, you do have to evade detection, and you do run the real risk of getting caught. I do not think "intrinsically wrong" is stopping people from shoplifting at all. For most people it is often simpler to just pay for the product.

The reason the iTunes store is so successful is because they make it more convenient to just grab it from there (not to mention the comparatively attractive price point) than it is to go out and find reasonable-quality pirated copies of everything.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I know that downloading books illegally isn't stealing, but the fundamental question still remains: is it right or wrong? We have a person on this thread who's clearly said that he knows it's wrong, but he still does it. What can we do to change the attitude of people like Jake?

I don't think you can (I also think it is a bit presumptuous to think you can). So you have to do your work on the other side of the fence in the form of finding/creating/inventing the iTunes Store for books. Which I have suggested with the e-library model earlier.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Again, with the greatest respect, writing books is just a job like any other job - it's not "our common culture". When I write a book, I have the right to sell it for profit just as I would if I were selling, say, sandwiches.

A side effect of trying to run culture as a business. I do not think writing books, making music, or making a painting is just like any job - in my work as a network administrator, nothing I will do will make a lasting impression on people like, say, the works of Shakespeare have. There is a fundamental difference.