The Pirate Bay files charges against media companies

When you walk into a rental shop and walk out with an unpaid-for movie, the shop loses something. They no longer have that copy of that movie. They cannot rent it to anyone else; they cannot sell it, it's gone. That is direct harm. However, torrenting is merely making a copy, which regardless of the morality of that is still definitively less harmful than outright TAKING something.

This brings us 'round to the argument that it's STILL somehow the same as stealing, since you're um er theoretically taking money away from them that you might theoretically have spent later. In reality this is not the nature of things. The vast majority, I suspect, of torrented items are ones that would NOT be otherwise purchased outright (mostly because a great plurality of torrent users are not precisely wealthy). You don't "lose a sale" to someone with no interest in purchase and no money. It's an inane concept.

Saying that making a copy of something that you would never otherwise purchase, in a way that does nothing to directly harm the product or its creator... saying this is the same as just walking out of a store with an armful of goods is wildly disingenuous.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Niczo

if it wasn't for me buying their music, there wouldn't be any music.

You seriously think that if the megalithic music industry players were to just pack up and go home, nobody would put out CDs anymore? You are the REASON CDs cost $15-$20, bucko. Keep swallowing that shit.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by DarkLink2135

Piracy is wrong by the pure definition of the word.

Which word?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by DarkLink2135

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it was probably "Piracy."

I am interested in what dictionary you have where the definitions of words include moral judgments about right and wrong.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Wait, what?

"Right" and "Wrong" are concepts confined entirely to law, now?

I didn't realize I was speaking to a child.

Most amazing jew boots

Who's bitching? Look, let's just pick a source and go from there.

Do you have a copy of the OED

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Is "Stupid" a moral or a legal term

FELIPE NO

I would propose that stupidity is a purely legal construct as otherwise we would not have legal measures for dealing with retards

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Brent

How, then, would you explain the historic examples of stupidity in action dating back long before, and which are seemingly unaffected by, the evolution of the legal system?

Those events were not stupid, since the legal concept of stupidity was not yet extant.

Rather, they were merely deeply unfortunate.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by koifox

Why do you guys have to rehash arguments that were old before I even downloaded my first track off bobo's idrive?

All things are wearisome;
more than one can express;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
or the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said,
"See, this is new"?
It has already been,
in the ages before us.
The people of long ago are not remembered,
nor will there be any remembrance
of people yet to come
by those who come after them.

There's nowhere I can't reach.