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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnRTroy" data-source="post: 4677222" data-attributes="member: 2732">The thing I don't get about the whole "right to preview" thing is this.Many video games have free download-ready demos available.Nowadays, many books have preview chapters and table of contents indexes.I don't think the "right to preview" involves being able to read the ENTIRE book or listen to the ENTIRE CD or watch the ENTIRE DVD or play the ENTIRE game.  The problem with doing that is, while torrent advocates say "the fact that someone downloaded doesn't mean they'd have bought it".  That's true, but there is a truism that "donation ware" or "tip jars" bring in less money than a fixed price.  If people wrongfully rip off books, then make it available to everybody, even though it's illegal and wrong--with the moral obsfucation and justification going on, young people think it's okay to do that or they're fighting the "big companies"--it will lead to more people using the free option.George Carlin talked about "euphemistic language", how Shell Shock became Post-Traumatic Stress disorder.  Even though there's some moral outrage about us using the terms "theft" and "piracy"--my gut level tells me the more blunt and critical term is the one to use.  Trying to turn it around and say "how dare you compare it to life and death crimes" misses the point.Whatever you call it, illegally downloading stuff that's protected and is meant to be sold flies in the face of millennia of legal, moral, and ethical precedents--from the "Thou Shall Not Steal/Covet" commandments, to the "Golden Rule", to how the world treats white-collar crime like embezzlement.  I don't think anything the "big corporations" have done compares to the simple fact that taking stuff that is meant to be paid for, that some people worked very hard to produce, just because it's possible and it "can't be stopped", is wrong.</blockquote>

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