[Dylan16807]

Weren't we talking about the situation where there's no way to buy? Piracy there isn't going to undermine the incentive to create.

If everyone litters in public areas where trash cans are reasonable to expect, but have not been installed, a likely and good outcome is that trash cans get installed. (But in a more accurate analogy, the trash cans would cost negative money to install!)

[WendyTheWillow]

That's a problem, however, because it presumes an entitlement to content. Maybe there is no way to buy, and that's on purpose. You don't have an inherent right to consume content; that ought to be up to the owner of that content, even if they decide to arbitrarily limit access to their content.

It's up to them, and when you take that decision away from them, you commit an immoral act.

[Dylan16807]

Again, that depends on what you think the purpose of copyright is.

If you consider public domain to be the default, then you do have an inherent right to consume content. The limitations placed on this right are done for a purpose, to promote more creation via sales. And if sales won't happen, then there's no reason for the copyright.

[WendyTheWillow]

This doesn't account for the fact that someone can hold a copyright (or a physical item) and decide not to sell it at all. After all, they either hold the rights to it or they don't. It's not only theirs if they manage it "well".

[Dylan16807]

It doesn't really account for that, true. But copyright isn't the only control. If you've never distributed something, that generally falls under basic privacy.

But if you've already put 50 thousand copies out into the world, it should stay available in some reasonable form.

[WendyTheWillow]

Why? Why do you lose rights to something when you share it, even if everyone you share it with agrees not to also share it?

[Dylan16807]

I used 50 thousand as the example number for a reason. At that point it's clearly public distribution.

[vonjuice]

You made the case of "knowingly taking something", that in the knowing that it was "unethically" obtained, there's wrong doing.

However I'd posit that media businesses "knowingly get into the business where it's easy to copy your content". If you don't want your content to be reproduced easily, then don't get into a business where it is virtually costless and harmless to make millions of copies immediately very easily. You're not entitled to put people in jail because you willingly chose to take part of a business that's at the mercy of technology.

To me this is like deciding to open up a grocery and then getting upset at the amount of produce you have to throw away because it goes bad when people don't buy it all, that's just a known factor of the nature of the business. If you don't like it, you're not entitled to shape the world to your liking. Get into blacksmithing or glass working instead.

[WendyTheWillow]

Right, people will copy your content if it's easy, but should they? These are separate questions.

A chance to bring up my favorite philosophical concept, the "is-ought problem" aka "Hume's Guillotine"! [0]

> An ethical or judgmental conclusion cannot be inferred based on purely descriptive factual statements.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

[vonjuice]

Yes, companies will bitch about piracy, but should they? :)