[mcintyre1994]

I'm not making any judgement on whether it should be legal/illegal etc. but I think saying it's a victimless crime at worst is potentially incorrect.

In the worst case, it's absolutely possible that you share something with someone, A, which A would have bought and then they don't buy it. In the worst case they don't in the future buy anything from the author/creator etc. In the worst case I'd consider that author/creator a victim in this case, they would have been paid whatever amount A would have paid but now haven't been.

I'm not arguing that's often the case (I don't think it is) but to absolutely rule it out feels like too much of a simplification. There can be a legitimate victim, it almost certainly isn't the person suing you and in most cases there probably isn't - but there can be I think.

[zanny]

It is not much of a market argument to say "there is this legal framework to artificially restrict information transfer, and if people don't obey it someone might not make revenue from nothing".

Most of the IP abolitionists (myself included) would just argue you should be doing free market information creation, and charging for scarce resources and not erecting some artificial framework mess to destroy a potentially enlightening capability of the information age. If you want to make a movie, seek funding to make the movie. If you want to write software, seek those who want software and ask them to give you money to make it, etc.

That is really inevitably the only way this ends, because IP is incompatible with the modern forms information can take. The ease, rate, and speed of transfer marginal expenses have collapsed to zero, so treating it as a scarce good is only systemically harming society with artificial scarcity.

[mcintyre1994]

I agree with you. I think it's inevitable that it will go that way, the current system is impractical in the modern world. I agree that artificial scarcity is of no benefit to society. The only thing I disagree with is that there's no possible way for piracy to have a legitimate victim, that feels like too much of a simplification to accept.

[runeks]

> In the worst case, it's absolutely possible that you share something with someone, A, which A would have bought and then they don't buy it. In the worst case they don't in the future buy anything from the author/creator etc. In the worst case I'd consider that author/creator a victim in this case, they would have been paid whatever amount A would have paid but now haven't been.

The thing is, what you're describing as a "victim" wouldn't be considered a victim in any other case.

If I set up a muffin stand and sell you muffins, you might choose to buy my muffins, and not the ones from the bakery across the street. But no one would call the bakery a victim, and call my actions, that lead to a decline in the income of the bakery, a criminal or even immoral act. Hell, I might even be using the bakery's generation-old recipe, and thus be profiting from information created/discovered by the bakery (akin to a digital copy of a movie created by a studio).

[mcintyre1994]

I disagree with your comparison, and I'd argue that there's no comparison to physical retail that really works. If there were we'd probably have sane laws anyway imo.

Making muffins costs you time and money, copying a digital file doesn't (ignoring an upload limit or something). Selling is different to giving away (and a stand giving away muffins is no more comparable for the above reason). Both apply even if you use their recipe.

It goes the other way too. The bakery have to put employee time and ingredients into making every muffin while of course the film company doesn't into every digital copy. For the record I'd never consider a film company a victim of piracy.

Again I don't think the laws are sensible, I don't think the way things work right now is going to continue, it's completely infeasible in the modern world. But I don't think that comparison is a reasonable one to make.