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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mouseferatu" data-source="post: 4699017" data-attributes="member: 1288">Absolute, utter, and ludicrous nonsense.Lots of people pirate, but a lot more people don't--either because they don't know how, or because (gasp!) they're law-abiding citizens.If it were legal and acceptable for anyone who wanted to distribute any book/movie/artwork/whatever to everyone, as long as they didn't charge for it, do you know how many people would actually pay for said goods?Pretty close to zero. Nobody pays for something they can legally get for free. That's just common sense and human nature. And even if people would still pay for a little while, because it's what they were used to, new generations who grew up with such things being legally free certainly would not. To ask artists and writers to rely on the kindness of the entire populace--to ask us to count on people paying for stuff if they legally do not have to--is not only blind to the realities of a capitalist society, it's insulting. Just as well as stores to give away groceries for free because "hey, someone might take pity and pay for them."The fact that technology makes it easier to break a given law does not, in and of itself, mean that the law is no longer applicable in modern society. Guns sure as hell make murder easier than it was when people had to rely on stone clubs.See, the thing is, for authors/artists/whatever, it doesn't matter if our creations are "easily distributable." It doesn't matter if people feel they're worthless because they're "just data," as opposed to actually being a physical good (like, say, a DVD player). None of that changes the fact thatA) We work just as hard to produce what we produce, andB) If we don't get paid for that work, we cannot afford to keep doing that work.Nothing shy of a complete failure of capitalism will ever change that.</blockquote>

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