Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1561469" data-attributes="member: 10201">That's what i'm asking. An argument that says they are not meaningfully different might persuade me. But if you simply state that there is no difference, it feels like you're jumping to conclusions, glossing over a hole in your argument so that it doesn't get exposed. I'm not saying you are doing that, just that it feels like you are. It's probably just a difference of POV: you seem to see it as an already-answered question, while i see it as a significant point of the debate [on the legality of filesharing].(1) possessing illegally, and (2) denying someone of possessionAgreed. But i consider it a relevant point of debate as to how the situation differs when (2) doesn't come into play. How does that change the situation? You seem to be saying "not at all." But that doesn't make sense to me, because we clearly recognize in other areas of law that denying someone of their possessions is wrong. If (2), on its own, is wrong, and (1)+(2) is wrong, then it seems to me that (1)+(2), minus the (2), should be somewhat less wrong, because we're not doing (2), which is in and of itself a wrong. Especially since, generalizing over various acts that are usually agreed upon to be wrong, the relative magnitude of wrongness of (1)+(2) and (2) are comparable--one does not significantly overshadow the other. I'm not arguing for simple economic addition here. I don't think that if, say, stealing a $10k car and destroying a $10k car have the same penalty, that therefore the illegal possession part of the car-stealing crime must be valued at zero. Nor do i intend to extend that to claiming that pirating is therefore a zero-cost crime. But, at the opposite extreme, it doesn't make sense to me that it is "just as much of" a crime as stealing. That would imply that if you pirated someone's IP, and then later destroyed their version, you would've done nothing more wrong. After all, if the piracy is just as bad as theft, then you're already guilty of that magnitude of crime and you've done nothing worse by also depriving the creator/owner of their copy. Does that seem right to you? Or should you be charged with two thefts in that situation? IOW, is it worse to pirate a copy, then destroy the original at a later date, than it is to simply steal it all in one fell swoop?</blockquote>

Verification