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There's probably no good answer to your question, since it depends on your choice of axioms. Given certain axioms, you might be able to logically derive the answer that "piracy" should not be punished. If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that piracy is illegal, and prevents authors to be payed. But just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it's right. Provided a law is morally wrong, for instance, punishment for breaking said law would also be morally wrong, and should not be supported. You'll probably also cheer to the freedom fighter breaking laws to overcome a dictator. Interestingly, most Americans would probably deny that anybody has a right to have income, or a minimum level of wealth and health in every other profession (for this would be "socialism"). So, why should authors and investors in creative works have that right? After all, the authors of most works have been payed. Most of the time, even the investors in these works have been paid as well. What you argue is basically that authors and investors haven't been paid 'enough'. But how do we rationally determine what payment is 'enough' or not? Of course, these "pirates" are fooling themselves if they think their moral arguments hold. Most of them don't do anything constructive (unlike, say, Open Source developers, or the Creative Commons community). |