[nwatson]

Pharmaceuticals: one product that's also costly to research and manufacture, and the firm that gets the magic compound first gets a couple of decades of monopoly. Plebs like us can't yet synthesize a copy of the medical product easily, so the pharmaceutical company has far fewer chokeholds to deal with to make sure no copies get out. Alas for media companies, copies are harder to manage.

As for not calling it "stealing", but "copyright infringement" instead ... no! "Copyright infringement" would be distributing the media (in whole, part, or integrated into other product) to others as if you had the rights to do so. That's not what consumers of illicitly downloaded materials are doing. They're "stealing".

[clarry]

If that is stealing, then stealing is a good thing. If everyone started stealing food, cars, electricity and fresh air in the same manner, all the world's food problems would be solved overnight. We'd have a practically infinite supply of everything.

[unclebucknasty]

Now, that is an interesting response that takes the discussion in an entirely different direction.

What you are advocating is a wholly different game with a new set of rules. I actually question the current economic system, the outsized wealth it produces for some, and artificial scarcity it creates for others, etc.

But, I think there's something between anarchy and a soulless brand of capitalism.