[cturner]

You draw an unusual bow there (ahem). If I was going to bring Robin hood in, I'd have made the analogy between Robin Hood and the defenders of copyright, not the infringers.

Copyright and Robin Hood ethics both breach the principle of live-and-let-live.

Robin Hood's takes away from some people. He justifies this with claims about the welfare another group.

Copyright applies the same principle. Defenders of copyright will say that in order to protect artists, engineers, etc, all of the rest of us should have less rights. We are not allowed to do certain things with magnetic signals on pieces of metal the we own, even in the privacy of our own homes.

It's not clear that it gives actual benefit to the recipient group. In practice, these people aren't defended well if at all, and the cost to the system is huge.

There'd also be a cost to the local economy if you had a brigand raiding merchants. I wouldn't operate in a region with those issues. Maybe if the people didn't have trading difficulties they'd have been able to lift themselves out of poverty, rather than being pushed into the arms of a revolutionary-come-nobleman.