Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy
Absolutely, but to say every download is lost income is false.
Yep, I never said otherwise.
No, it is nothing like borrowing someone's car without their permission. Yet again you are trying to think of intellectual property in terms of physical property laws. That doesn't work. I don't know if you just don't understand the difference, or if you are intentionally trying to blur the lines between the two.
It certainly doesn't meet the legal definition.
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Shaggy,
Let me be clear about something... We are not just talking about the law here, we are talking about what is right and what is not right. Legally downloaing ebooks may not be the same as borrowing someone's car, but ethically there is. There ideally should be an intersection of law and ethics somewhere.
The fact that you even use the term intellectual property implies that there is ownership of that property. If it is possible to own something, then it is possible to steal it. I am not talking about legal definitions. Get your head out of the !@#$ law book and recognize that I am arguing about the ethics behind the laws. Call it copyright infringement if you will, but ethically it is stealing just like if you borrow someone's physical property without their permission. If you are going to claim it is morally different, then explain how it is different (without simply saying that one is physical property and one is intellectual property)? If you refer to the law, I am going to assume you have no moral compass outside the law.
If I spend years developing software code, and someone else breaks into my computer, copies that code and then sells it, that might legally be one set of crimes, but morally it is still stealing, pure and simple. I don't call that person a copyright infringer, I call him a thief pure and simple. If you were a computer programmer or an author you would do the exact same thing.
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Bill