> but it boggles my mind how comfortable everybody seems able to justify it.
> To the contrary, I understand it perfectly, I just don't agree with it.
I don't really understand how it can 'boggle your mind' while you still understand it. Mind-boggling implies that it's surprising to you, which it shouldn't be.
Don't get me wrong, while I do not entirely agree with your point of view, I understand it. But to describe it as mind-boggling would be both inconsistent and perhaps a bit condescending. It seems to me that it would be better to express understanding and then explain why you disagree, rather they to pretend 'being startled'.
Fair point. i made my earlier point poorly, as I didn't respond to your post in context (but rather as its own entity).
In the same way that I understand the appeal of, say, scientology (e.g., You are a superior being, and with just a little help, we can make you far more successful, rich in pocket, body, spirit, blah blah), but it still boggles the mind that people fall for it.
I understand the appeal to self-justify taking something from another that you want more. I understand the appeal of copying something you don't own, or can't buy, which doesn't physically "take" anything away from the owner. I understand those things just fine. What I don't understand is how low the lack of respect for your fellow man has to be that they can create something, not give it to you, and that isn't a deterrent from just taking it anyway.
Even if I accept the argument that it doesn't take anything from the owner (which I don't), and that a given copy of data is nothing more than a secret a friend won't tell me, I still respect other people enough that I'm not going to dig through their things until their secrets are mine.
The thing is that it still strikes me as rather arrogant to compare pirating to something like scientology, or imply that it is 'respectless' to my fellow man. Even just based on this HN thread, there's probably a huge part of society that is 1) intelligent, 2) conscientious, and 3) does not consider pirating a big crime. I just need to look at myself and the vast majority of my friends to confirm this.
I could defend my point of view by saying that I would simply not download certain things if there was no easy way to do so, but clearly we disagree on this issue. But arguing that it's 'simply' lack of respect for your fellow man and 'simply' taking does not do the issue justice.
Either it is as simple as you say, and all of us who pirate are lesser creatures than yourself (which would be convenient to conclude), or it's not as simple as you say. I don't really see how there's a third option, and that's the problem I had with your comment.
It was (probably a poor) analogy, not a comparison. I was simply trying to come up with something else that is both understandable to me, and yet still mind boggling. I was definitely not attempting to conflate the two.
As for the rest, it's very possible that despite how much thought I've put into it, I'm completely wrong.
Offtopic, but your focus on the word "simply" made me wonder if I'd said it. I hadn't, so I'm curious as to the focus on it.
To me, if someone creates (or has) something unique, and doesn't want someone else to have it, then they should not. It doesn't matter to me whether it's freely available on the pirate bay, or locked up in their sock drawer; they created it, not me, and if they want me to have it, they'll either give it to me, or make it available to me to purchase.
Anything else violates their wishes on their thing.
I think this is where a lot of people will disagree with you. Personally, I don't believe a person who created something should get that level of control. It's fine to control your possessions, i.e. things that can belong to only one person at the same time, and that happen to belong to you now. But I see absolutely no reason for which you should be able to control information. Not just music or games, and not just digital. Information - as abstract as it gets.
That is, if you and only yourself have it, it's of course immoral for me to coerce you to give it to me, or to take it from you against your will. But if you give (a copy of) that information to a third party, the third party now owns a copy, and should have the same rights about it as you have. Which includes giving that information to me, for free.
There's no other way for it to work that makes sense. Just like you don't have a right to tell something to someone and then issue a gag order, you shouldn't have such right to any other form of information.
Of course, exceptions are being made because of the economy, but then let's be clear - piracy is bad because of economic reasons, not moral ones. Morally you're privileged by being able to limit distribution of information in the first place.
> To me, if someone creates (or has) something unique, and doesn't want someone else to have it, then they should not.
This is an extraordinary amount of personalized respect to give faceless companies who are literally only acting as they do in order to extract the maximum amount of money from "content" they did not create.
Fair enough. You didn't say 'simply'; I just wanted to emphasize that the problem I have is that you appear to be reducing something that opinions are clearly divided on, and something that I'd say is clearly complicated, to a 'simple' matter.
> To me, if someone creates (or has) something unique, and doesn't want someone else to have it, then they should not. It doesn't matter to me whether it's freely available on the pirate bay, or locked up in their sock drawer; they created it, not me, and if they want me to have it, they'll either give it to me, or make it available to me to purchase.
That's what I would call an argument that comes across as 'simple'. Self-evident, almost. But because so many intelligent, moral people disagree, there's probably some element in there that you're oversimplifying (from the perspective of those who hold a different point of view). Not acknowledging that is what bothered me, but of course it's fair enough if you hold this view and express it as your perspective.
Anyways, I do see your point, and I do respect it. The way I see it, nobody can fault you for choosing to be more 'restrictive' or 'narrow' in your ethical framework (where 'narrow' is not meant as an insult)!
> To the contrary, I understand it perfectly, I just don't agree with it.
I don't really understand how it can 'boggle your mind' while you still understand it. Mind-boggling implies that it's surprising to you, which it shouldn't be.
Don't get me wrong, while I do not entirely agree with your point of view, I understand it. But to describe it as mind-boggling would be both inconsistent and perhaps a bit condescending. It seems to me that it would be better to express understanding and then explain why you disagree, rather they to pretend 'being startled'.