Много точно казано ми се вижда.

В резюме, да копираш нечие прозиведение не е кражба, защото не лишаваш оригиналния притежател от нищо. Също така, това че си копирал нещо не значи, че Компанията издател е загубила потенциален купувач, защото много малък процент от хората които са копирали нещо (филм, мп3) са щели да си я купят по принцип ако е нямало как да я даунлоуднат/изкопират.


The problem is the definition of stealing. Traditionally, stealing always meant intentionally and permanently depriving someone of their property. This was later extended to cover situations where you deprive someone of a service, or where you don't permanently deprive someone of property but you deprive them of it for long enough to render it useless (i.e. taking someone's concert ticket and giving it back after the concert has gone ahead).

In no sense of the word can it be said that anyone here is being deprived of anything. A digital copy leaves the original completely intact. Of course, **AA argue that every single copy equals a lost sale. They would, wouldn't they? But this is blatantly ridiculous. There are far too many people who hoard music/movies - they couldn't have afforded to buy them all even if they wanted to. The truth is that a very tiny portion of those people who download would have bought the item if they hadn't downloaded (and a number of those people buy the item anyway, after they've tried it).

Downloading is just a convenience to most people. It's easier for me to download an album/movie and spend an hour listening to/watching it than it is for me to research what's worth buying. If I like it enough that I'll get more mileage out of it than the initial look, I'll buy it anyway. If there were no downloads I wouldn't buy any crap that came out, I'd do lots of research to see which were worth my limited fiscal resources. I'd waste a lot of my free time in doing so, but meh, I'd be more happy burning through time than I would money.

The real criminals are those who sell pirated items. Their customers have proven that they would be willing to buy (at the right price) the content and as such it's easier to make a case for a lost sale. Not all of them would be lost sales of course, most people would rather pay £5 for a movie AND see it at the same time as it's released in the cinema than wait 6-12 months and pay £20. But they are at least demonstrating that they're willing to pay some amount for that copy - thus the guy selling it is depriving the copyright holder of a sale, arguably stealing in the process.

Do we see the **AA/governments/police stamping out these resellers? Well, to a tiny extent. But for the most part they're going after casual downloaders. Why is this, if the real "thieves" are getting away with it? Because the real argument isn't about theft, it never was. It's about control. **AA want it and the internet has done a pretty good job of eroding it. So they attack downloaders, try to make us fear the tool that will remove their control, push for laws to control how we use content we've paid for. In essence they're trying to limit our rights in regards to our own legally purchased content - to me THEY are the real thieves in all of this. Just ask the artists, who also get royally screwed...

==================
VI VI VI - The editor of the Beast