[tomp]

Your assumptions are wrong. When people pirate content (download without paying), that doesn't necessarily mean that they are not paying the content creators. A Swiss government study found out that people's entertainment budgets are relatively constant - what we don't spend for digital content, we spend for concerts and such. So, there is no real economic harm from piracy (if there was, Hollywood wouldn't be having record profits...).

[tzs]

> A Swiss government study found out that people's entertainment budgets are relatively constant - what we don't spend for digital content, we spend for concerts and such. So, there is no real economic harm from piracy

Your second sentence does not follow at all from the first. When people have a fixed budget, piracy might not change how much they spend, but it will change the distribution of the spending.

For instance, if someone could not pirate, they might buy two albums a month and see one movie in a theater. If they pirate, they can pirate the music, and go out to the movies twice. Same total spent, but the musicians have been harmed, and the movie producers have benefited.

[lachyg]

In my opinion, that's completely besides the point. It doesn't matter if people wouldn't have bought it anyway. Just because we wouldn't have bought it anyway doesn't give us a right to download it. That's ridiculous.

The issue with digital content versus physical content is that there is no cost of replication, whereas with physical goods the cost of replication goes beyond the initial R&D, it goes into the actual materials, machinery and labour to produce it. I believe this is where the "it's okay to pirate content" comes from -- because theres no 'money lost'.