Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
The *philosophical* difference is that, when you take a book off the shelves, nobody else has it. When it's distributed by torrents, nobody's lost their chance to read it. That's the core difference between the acts.
Theft takes something away from someone else. Copying doesn't. Copying can still cause harm... just like punching someone can cause harm, and "steal" his ability to work, but it's not prosecuted as theft.
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I suppose, in the selfishness that is increasingly the hallmark of thought in this day and age, you never stopped to consider in the midst of your rationalization that the
author might perhaps care about the lost royalties from this "it doesn't hurt anyone" scheme. You are focusing on the reading public, as though they are the ones who even
matter, as though, when an author spends months or years creating a work, that the public has some kind of God-given
right to read it. That's complete and utter horse manure. If I write a book and you want to read it, you can pay me what I want for it or you can do without. I couldn't care less if you want to move along rather than paying the fee, but I would care
very much if you replied that you had no intention of paying me for the
privilege of reading my work and instead would just go illegally copy it from someone else. Sugarcoat it however you want in an attempt to justify it, but when you illegally copy or distribute a copyrighted work that you would have otherwise had to pay for, then you are indeed stealing from the author for your own convenience.