[Gllug] Uh oh, ministers consider "anti file-sharing laws"

[David Damerell]

On Wednesday, 31 Oct 2007, Martin A. Brooks wrote:
>David Damerell wrote:
>>Relative to buying it, certainly; that is not in dispute. But then,
>>not playing or buying it _also_ deprives them of income relative to
>>buying it.
>Errm, no, you've already tried this argument. It was stupid last time too.

Are you saying that not playing or buying a game does _not_ deprive
the software house of income relative to buying it? Because that is
manifestly false.

>>Which brings us to the point you are dodging away from. You produced
>>the observation that downloading a cracked game deprives the software
>>house of income as justification for the point of view that doing so
>>was morally equivalent to stealing;
>I see no difference between downloading commercial software and using it 
>and stealing software from PC World and using it.

That's fine (well, it's not fine, it's dumb). But the justification
you advanced was that in the former case you deprive the software
house of income, and that justification is equally valid for the case
of neither buying nor using the software.

>You seem hung on the idea that something physical has to be removed
>for theft to have occured:

No, I'm not. That's a straw man you made up - in a reply to no-one else.

>>that still leads naturally to the
>>absurd conclusion that simply never having anything to do with the
>>game is morally equivalent to stealing as well.
>Which restates your, still stupid, argument.

It's a stupid conclusion from your premises, yes. That's because they
are stupid premises.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Gloucesterday, October.
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