yeah, note, I'm not arguing about the legality of it. Though that's major ball of wax. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the idea of the strictness of some laws (not necessarily the ones at issue here) and how moral "civil disobedience" is. Not what I wanted to talk about here, but I thought I'd mention why I'm NOT talking about legality.
Actually, SE, I didn't even get to your side of the argument--I waxed too philosophical about other things. I meant to note to you that I think Sprig misinterpreted you, as you were drawing the argument in a different direction. (Ie, you wanted to talk about punishment as a deterrent. Sprig wanted to argue ethics.)
As for your Civil Disobedience thing, I too have had questions about this issue. Many LDS people, as conservatives, have been very adamant that we shouldn't engage in it. However, the church itself has been pretty lenient on people who get arrested for engaging in Civil Disobedience. It's an interesting question.
And again, I say to you - if I am not going to buy the CD either way, which I'm not, who exactly am I stealing from?
I'm sorry, Fuzzy, but I don't accept this as a valid argument. It doesn't mater that you don't intend to purchase the CD either way--it matters that the law has defined what you are doing as illegal, and it is immoral to break the law. In a larger, and more important scope, you could apply your rational to other non-tangible forms of stealing.
Would you say it isn't wrong to sneak into a movie theater and watch a movie? Lets say the movie wasn't sold out, and you would never have bought a ticket. Therefore, the theater isn't 'losing' anything by your sneaking in. Would you claim that you haven't done anything immoral by watching that movie?
The way our society works is you get goods or services in exchange for resources. As a consumer, if you don't want to pay for something, you simply go without. There is no middle ground of 'I wasn't going to pay for it anyway, so for me the rules shouldn't apply.'
I'm with Saint: yes, downloading music is illegal, but no more "wrong" than speeding on the interstate.
I have something to add here, but I'll preface it by noting that I'm not a hundred percent sure on this, so if someone can find something conclusive, I'd like to see it.
Speeding is not illegal. Going a certain number of miles above the speed limit IS usually illegal. But speeding itself has been, what they call in legal circles, 'de-criminalized.' This means that while you can be fined for speeding, you get no criminal record for it, and it's not a misdemeanor.
Downloading music, however, IS illegal since it breaks a specific law--meaning copyright law. As of right now, I don't think downloading music is a 'de-criminalized' activity. It has been ruled on and determined an infraction of the law.
So, the speeding metaphor is actually invalid.
And if downloading indy artists is ok, why is it not ok to download songs by say, Moby, who doesn't object to file sharing? If I'm not depriving anyone of money, then it must be intellectual property that I'm stealing - and if they person who created the music doesn't care, how am I in the wrong?
This is actually part of what's screwed up about the music industry. Moby doesn't own the copyright for his songs--the music company does. In literature, the author owns the copyright, and that allows him or her to (eventually) post the material on-line for free. (Scott Card does this, as do the fine fellows over at the Baen Free Library.)
I, personally, would consider downloading these songs 'less-immoral' than downloading songs by others. However, it is still illegal--and it's the morality of breaking the law that, perhaps, should worry you.
