[lzol]

This is a poor analogy imo. It's not a physical medium. There's a finite number of parking spots. Once they're used up they're gone. Media is not a finite resource. If I have 50 friends over to watch the Avengers movie, there's nothing wrong with that. There's not less movie to go around, but there's probably fewer people who would spend money to rent it. I can't bring 50 people in my car to use a parking spot. There's physical limitations. Comparing digital things to physical things is always going to be a poor translation.

[rayiner]

The fact that there are a finite number of reserved parking spots only matters if there are more people who want one than there are spots. In that case, you’re keeping a spot from a paying customer, costing the garage money. In my garage, however, the reserved spots have number been full, and many are empty every day. Does that make it okay to park there?

The digital versus physical distinction is in my opinion meaningless. We’re not talking about an abstract bit pattern. We are talking about the product of peoples’ labor. (Indeed, movies are more uniquely the product of human labor than almost anything else. It’s not like a factory-produced widget.) People make these things and ask you to set the terms for your benefitting from the fruits of their labor. Whether the product takes the form of a physical thing or a bit pattern is irrelevant to the human dimension of the transaction.

[nybble41]

> In my garage, however, the reserved spots have number been full, and many are empty every day. Does that make it okay to park there?

Maybe it does. If all the spots are interchangeable and have no other uses besides parking vehicles, and there was never a time that all the spots were full while your vehicle was present, I think a very good argument could be made that there was no damage to the property owner as a result of you parking there. Regardless of who technically owns the spot, the absence of damage implies that there would be no just basis for seeking restitution.

Of course, in the real world parking spots are not interchangeable (e.g., some are more conveniently located than others) and have potential uses other than parking which the presence of your vehicle would conflict with. But those concerns only apply because the parking spot is a specific physical space which can only be put to a single use at any given time.

External benefits others might derive from our actions are not something we have any inherent right to control, even if they are the result of our own labor. We only have the right to veto actions which would interfere with our own use of our property.

When it comes to physical property most of the obvious ways in which others might benefit from the property would interfere with our own use, so we get to decide whether those uses are allowed or not and seek restitution in proportion to the damage caused when our wishes are not respected. There are exceptions where others' benefit does not interfere with the owners' use or result in damages. Maybe I derive enjoyment from the mere fact that the object exists; you don't get to veto that passive enjoyment regardless of whether I pay you for it.

When the subject is unauthorized copying of patterns of bits, however, that act can never interfere with the makers' use of those same patterns of bits. The maker derives the full benefit their labor (the enjoyment of the work itself), and others can also derive that same benefit at no expense to the maker.