Danger, danger, danger--we are in threadjack territory
Originally posted by Baca Loco
3--the bulk of your petrol prices and our gasoline prices come by way of confiscatory added taxation, and we still retain some shadow of believing we're a free people. But I don't recall any murders over rising gas prices . . .
It is argued in some quarters that we go to war over rising gas prices... that would be murder writ large.
On topic, though, yes downloading music that belongs to a record label (bought by that label at often great expense from the artist) without permission is theft.
All this indicates is what Simon already wrote about- there is a great gap in between moral consensus and legal consensus. The more divorced the two are, the closer you are to a government that needs to be overthrown. People never feel guilt about breaking laws. They only feel guilt about breaking their own moral rules. If society is lucky enough that one of those moral rules is "respect the common good and obey laws," than it has another useful member.
The difficulty with file sharing is that most people possess no intellectual property (funny, innit?), and so cannot identify with those who do. The most common degree of moral awareness, I think, requires some level of empathy. That is why people are always citing the "big, bad company". It isn't a real entity like you and me! What we are stealing is just sound! A non-person being robbed of their non-stuff? please. Way too abstract.
All property is impossible. All property is democratic. You only get to keep what the howling mob lets you keep.
