[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

The act of obtaining copyrighted digital content that is for sale without paying for it is wrong.

However, the act of obtaining copyrighted *physical* content without paying for it is an established part of book culture. Why is digital content inherently wrong to acquire without payment? We certainly have no problem with physical books being loaned or given away; why should we object to digital files being loaned or given?

There is a technical issue in that it's difficult--but not impossible--to loan a digital file without making a copy of it. But that shouldn't change the inherent morality of the act.

It doesn't matter if there is a clear, quantifiable loss, it's wrong and there should be a penalty if you're caught with it, even if it's stuff the person would never would have bought. If they didn't pay for it, they shouldn't be able to get the enjoyment of having their own copy of the content.

Ah, *THIS* is a key issue. It's not about "paying the author," it's about whether the reader deserves to be able to read the content.

It's not about the law. It's about money and social standards: only those who can afford entertainment and information should have access to it.

Harm/loss to others/society aren't requirements for things to be crime.

Yes, it is. The harm doesn't have to be measured in dollars, but acts presumed harmless are not considered criminal. In the case of drunk driving, whether an incident is harmful or not is based on luck, rather than skill of the driver; since people without skills to control a car safely aren't given licenses, a drunk driver is effectively an unlicensed driver. Prostitution is considered "morally harmful," and is often harmful to the women involved, who may be coerced or forced into the job against their will. Some drug use is considered harmful to society at large--both because, like drunk drivers, some drug users aren't in control of their actions, and because ... um, kinda drawing a blank here, but I gather there's plenty of arguments that claim some drugs are illegal because they do cause harm, none that say they're illegal because of some inherent evil in the drug itself separate from any damage it can do.

There doesn't have to be an absolute loss that occurs for something to be wrong and to be subject to criminal penalties.

There doesn't have to be an objectively-measurable loss, but harm is required.

Every illegal download/upload is wrong and should be a misdemeanor criminal act IMO.

Do you believe *every* illegal act is wrong, and that there is no such thing as an unjust law?

Another key question: How can an individual downloader know what files violate copyright? How can I know if the distributor has the right to distribute the ebook or song or whatever? (Note that Amazon sold Orwell's books to hundreds of customers who believed Amazon had a legal right to sell them. Should they all have been prosecuted for illegal downloading?)

When you visit a website, how can you ascertain ahead of time that nobody's uploaded illegal content to it?

If a work is found to infringe on copyrights, are people who downloaded it before the court ruling guilty of the crime?

This is *important.* Right now, there is often *no way to know* if something is copyright infringement until a court has ruled on it. If someone's selling bootleg CDs, it's easy to say, "he's distributing more than 10 copies, for profit... that violates the law." However, if someone is distributing an ebook version of Harry Potter--that needs to be measured against the four factors; it might be fair use. It's not competing with the ebook market, and might serve to promote physical sales. If someone releases an ebook, "Harry Potter: 20 years later," and claims it's a parody, who decides if it's fair use or an infringing derivative work?