Of course. I agree 100%. But this is different than the question I am asking. I'm not asking about what the legal consequences of music piracy should be, but how music piracy can be ethically justified.
I didnt think it was being justified though. It was an issue of one guy being charged almost 700k for 30 songs. If anything thing charge him 30 x price of each song (or even some multiple M, say 2, for "expenses"). To truly recover the costs, they should really be charging everyone who pirated the song or actively distributed it instead of who pinning the entire costs on one guy who pirated it or participated in a swarm.
Haha! True. But it's frustrating for me to ask: "Is it ethical to pirate music?" and the direct answer to be "It is wrong to sue people for tons of money for pirating music." That's a complete non sequitur.
Perhaps it can be justified on the basis of property rights. If you own a penny, you have the right to place it on your table heads up or tails up, barring extreme circumstances. In that sense, the penny can be in two states.
If you own a six-sided die, you obviously have the right to place it in any of its six natural states.
If you own a hard disk, it has 2^N states, where N is the capacity in bits. You have the right to place the disk in any of those states.
According to this line of thought, any regulation which deprives the property owner of the right to place his property in one of its natural states is an infringement of property rights.
