[Lambda]

Originally Posted by ato

Response: If your friend looked in through a window and saw (for example) a nice shiny new computer and said "Me wants!", would you consider it rude not to tell him the best method of stealing it? In the eyes of the law, there is no difference between a computer and a song.

Erm, actually there is. Stealing a computer is a criminal offence, and the police can prosecute you for it. Copying a song in breach of copyright is a civil offense, and the police should not do anything about it unprompted. The only way it can get you in trouble is by giving the copyright holder the right to sue. Oh, and copyright infringement is not stealing.

Response: I don't know your background, but in most western countries (and eastern too, in fact) we have something called a "market economy". Basically, this is an economic system in which commodities and services is priced according to what the market will bear. In such a system, it is a fact that aquireing goods for which the owner wants compensation without paying is illegal. Rude or not doesn't enter into it.

But bear in mind that we are not talking about a traditional good or service. A song can be replicated at negligable cost, which is not being borne by its owner. Traditional goods and services cost the makers money to produce each time a "copy" is made.

If you steal a physical object, you are directly depriving the owner of that object. Illegal copying does not directly deprive anyone of anything (which is why it's not stealing), it merely breaches an arrangement, (invented several hundred years ago when easy copying didn't exist, so possibly rather outdated), established to help reward the creators of such things for their work, making it more difficult for them to profit from their rightful temporary monopoly on it. (Although often it can actually help instead.) It's an entirely different issue, and comparisons between the two are not helpful.