[xhkkffbf]

As a writer, I must say that this always makes me feel sad. If I complain about piracy, I get modded down. It's pretty clear to me that a few people with the power mod down any anti-piracy sentiment. I'm almost certainly going to get modded down now.

Many of the others have posted some good explanations that tie the pro-piracy people to the idea that information wants to be free. In other words, asking people to pay is somehow kind of equivalent to censorship.

It's worth noting that the pro-piracy vibe is only for pirating the work of writers, musicians or movie makers. Not pirating software. If someone suggests simply stealing someone else's code -- or even just ignoring an open source license -- people jump all over that person. The programmers stick together. But the artists are in another tribe so it's okay to rip them off.

[pestatije]

On the other hand my code is paid by the hour and belongs to my employer, whereas books, music recordings and movies have a 95 year long copyright enforced by law. I know which tribe is ripping off the other.

[xhkkffbf]

Uh, your code is protected by the same copyright law as books, music recordings and movies. The only reason the GPL, for instance, has any teeth is because of copyright law.

If there's no copyright, anyone can steal your employer's code and then your employer won't have money to pay you by the hour.

[uni_rule]

The lawyer one?

[randomhodler84]

Mostly out of practicality. Gone are the days of safety running binary warez. (Code) [malware]. Too many malcode and viruses.

Data on the other hand, is far less risky, as malicious content would need to exploit the file format parser, etc which is much harder than Trojan using a binary. You probably are not getting malware from mp3s.