mswlogo;194806 Wrote: > > I hear more arguments that the big music giants are rich. What's few > ripped songs. Does that mean I can go to walmart and stuff a an Ipod in > my coat poacket without paying. Their rich. >
I hate it when people equate copyright violations with theft. They are simply not at all alike. If I copy a digital music file from its owner, I haven't taken anything away from them, or deprived them of anything. It's completely unlike stealing something (which doesn't necessarily make it right, just different). Sometimes people argue that in copying, you are depriving the rights owner of possible future income, since you are now less likely to purchase the music (which itself is an assumption), and have therefore "stolen" something from them. But you might as well argue that in choosing to buy one bottle of wine over another, you're depriving the other vineyard of potential profits, and are therefore guilty of theft. If you stay home and don't buy anything, are you stealing from every company you might have bought something from? Obviously not - the concept of property and ownership just isn't the correct one for these cases, and it's a shame it's gotten conflated with it. This isn't an issue of moral right, it's an issue of what is best for our society. In the case of physical property we have decided collectively it's best to allow owenership and make theft a crime and an immoral act. But the question of copyright is relatively very recent, and nothing is forcing us to choose any particular path. It's no more clear that copying music is wrong than it is that preventing music from being copied is wrong. It's just not a moral issue, at least not to me - it's a question of what is best. -- opaqueice ------------------------------------------------------------------------ opaqueice's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4234 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=34366 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
