drathbun wrote:
GeorgiePorgie wrote:I've agreed with about 99% of what drathbun has said in this thread so far.
What did I get wrong?
From your post (and your web site) I would expect that you are far more knowledgable about the topic than I am, so if I got my facts wrong I would appreciate a correction.
On the other hand, if it's an opinion that you've disagreed with, that's another matter.
I'm certainly not an expert on these matters, I only know enough to know that I don't know enough.
The 1 percent is a trivial matter of semantics, not a matter of substance.
It is the bit, early in the topic, where you described the illegal activity in this manner:
drathbun wrote:
That - no matter how you spin it - is stealing.
I'm not sure that I agree with the use of the word "stealing" as a description of the act. I'm not sure that I disagree with it, either. In discussions about this topic elsewhere, I myself have invoked the word "stealing". So if it the wrong word, then I'm guilty too.
The spirit of word "stealing" does seem apt for the act of illegal downloading, and a dictionary definition of the word "stealing" would seem to apply correctly. But "stealing" is a word commonly associated with the criminal act of theft, and it is usually not theft that the downloaders are hounded for (to my knowledge, anyway). The legal cases that I'm aware of are civil cases involving copyright abuse, not criminal cases involving theft.
Aside from my *possible* objection to the term "stealing" to describe the act of illegal downloading, I am in complete agreement with everything you've said in this topic.