Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
I wish people would quit trying to muddy the waters with redefinitions of the concept.
If you take something that is mine without my permission, you have stolen from me and you are a thief.
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You are trying to appeal to morality. Yet, you are begging the question. The question is whether something as intangible as an "object" of copyright is "yours" in moral terms. There is nothing self-evident about this.
My view is that the copyright is an exception to the general rule that literary, artistic, etc. embodiment of ideas is not "property" and it cannot and should not be claimed by any individual or group of individuals.
I admit validity of an argument that a limited in scope and time exception to this general rule (i.e. copyright) may be necessary to encourage the creation of such ideal content, and as such beneficial to the society. Yet, the restrictions (prohibitions against unauthorized copying, etc.) accompanying this exception are
malum prohibitum (i.e., wrong solely because prohibited by law; not wrong in itself). Speeding is a good example of
malum prohibitum crimes.
As a result, I do not view copyright violations as
malum in se (wrong in itself; morally wrong). Examples of
malum in se crimes would be murder, theft (it would follow from my position above that I do not consider violations of copyright to be "theft").
Even if the most of us would agree that the copyright is necessary, we, as the society, should have a discussion how broad in scope and long in time we would allow/tolerate this exception to be. Note that this discussion can and should lead to different results in different societies/countries.