US commissions Swedish IP law (WikiLeaks/Pirate Party)

[Alyeska]

Its frightfully easy to find cases of copyright violation harming an artist.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... atmeal.ars

And interestingly enough it shows how hard it is to defend copyright when you are a lone artist.

[Broomstick]

Lets take the Anime subbing scene. They have extensive contacts in the host country which provide raws tv/dvd/bluray rips, teams of people who speed translate, QA, encode it into a portable format and time the subs to the source media and encode. This is for one subbing group, and there are a stupid number of them. This is a massive amount of effort, requiring at least +3 people at a time and a fair chunk of computational resources to encode stuff quickly, and a lot of man-hours to translate and check even roughly.

The only 'profit' they make off this, is being able to watch a bunch of content which is likely never going to be released elsewhere or have massive time-lag between the original release and the export version.

And... despite all that, despite the good that arguably comes from the efforts of these people, they are STILL violating copyright law. Frankly, I'd have more respect for you if you'd try to argue for a justification for breaking it in these particular circumstances (strong desire from a fan base vs. owner who refuses to make the work available) than arguing that no wrong is done. I'd have more respect for your position if you'd argue that such circumstances show that copyright law as it exists is flawed and has not adapted to the modern world and should be changed to accommodate the new circumstances. For example: when an owner does not provide dubbed copies in that particular media allow limited dubbing/copying, perhaps with appropriate royalty payments. Something to appease both sides in this case, but do it above-board without the damn sneaking around.

Broomstick, you of all people should know that a personal budget is a zero-sum game for what you can purchase for entertainment. If you buy hundred of dollars worth of some tv series dvd collection or perhaps recreational flying, something else in your budget has to have that money taken away from it if you want to remain financially solvent.

Depends on how much money I have, doesn't it? Back when I was flying I really had all the money I needed for the entertainment I desired, and certainly didn't spend every cent of that budget every month.

Of course, now that my income is vastly less it's a different story - so instead of buying books and DVD's I borrow them from the library. I still get my entertainment legally. Now, I'm not going to claim I'm a saint and have never looked at or listened to a bootleg of something but I sure as hell don't make a habit of it, and it's almost invariably circumstances where I have no means to obtain or view a legitimate copy. As noted, that's sometimes how you become aware of something out there.

And you are still going to have more time to you could use for entertainment than your budget could support.

Incorrect - back in my wealthier days I in fact had extremely little leisure time. That's why I seldom spent all of my monthly entertainment budget, I just didn't have the time to indulge.

Then again, aside from flying, most of what I do for entertainment is pretty cheap. That's not because of extreme budget self-discipline, but because much of what I enjoy just happily doesn't cost a whole lot of money.

The thing is, I'm one of those creative types - and I've had my work stolen and re-sold by someone else. So please don't give me that bullshit that copyright violation NEVER hurts the artist when I know from personal experience that it certainly can. That theft didn't give me "word of mouth" or lead to more sales, it took money that should have been mine. And it's not like I'm a complete bastard when it comes to my work - some of my written stuff, for example, I have made available for free now - after I officially published it and received some compensation for my time and effort. I have on numerous occasions allowed people to make copies without charge (as long as they themselves do not charge for them) but you have to ASK ME first. As copyright holder it is my prerogative to either release the work or not, to charge or not. Most copyright holders actually do want their stuff out there, but they also want compensation for their time, effort, and aggravation. Or at least recognition that THEY did the work.

You know, nothing would thrill me more than to be able to put my writing up on a website with a "pay" button at the bottom and be able to trust that folks would send me something for reading it. I have in fact done that on my website to see what would happen. Yes, sometimes I get something. Going by hits on the site vs. what hits the PayPal account, it's about one in 1500. I can't make a living off that. I don't think I can justify spending my time cleaning up and editing my writing for that. I mean, goddamn, if folks just gave one penny for a read I could happily live with that, but the fact is the vast majority will happily read for free and give the author jack shit. Well, there was the one guy who sent me the scathing e-mail saying what a greedy bitch I was asking for voluntary contributions.

So, while the people in this thread may be upstanding folks who later go out and buy what they've bootlegged a lot of people aren't. I think as someone who has tried to make a living in the arts I have a vastly different perspective than some of you folks who are just consumers. Granted, I'm just one person, but my experience is not unique.

[Magis]

Magis is also an idiot because there has been something stolen from him
Time
Time is also a resource, your example sucks.

That was the whole point of my example, you retarded asshole.

You don't think that time was stolen from artists/producers/etc. that produce entertainment only to have it copied for free? They've invested the time they did only so that they can make money from it, not have it spread around by bit torrent people. Earlier in this thread Xon offered a definition of stealing: "... That's the dictionary and legal definition of stealing; depriving the owner of thier property by taking it without payment or authorization." The point of my analogy was to make it clear that even if someone's property isn't stolen, downloading music/movies is still immoral because the creators of the music/movies are being robbed of the time and effort they invested in its creation.

My analogy to the topic at hand is valid, you apparently agree with the point I was trying to make (theft doesn't need to involve physical property), and you're apparently just too stupid to follow what's going on in this thread.

[Xon]

And... despite all that, despite the good that arguably comes from the efforts of these people, they are STILL violating copyright law. Frankly, I'd have more respect for you if you'd try to argue for a justification for breaking it in these particular circumstances (strong desire from a fan base vs. owner who refuses to make the work available) than arguing that no wrong is done. I'd have more respect for your position if you'd argue that such circumstances show that copyright law as it exists is flawed and has not adapted to the modern world and should be changed to accommodate the new circumstances. For example: when an owner does not provide dubbed copies in that particular media allow limited dubbing/copying, perhaps with appropriate royalty payments.

Copyright law is horrifically flawed due to effectively nil-cost distribution, and that nothing is actually been stolen. But frankly your mixing criminal copyright infringement which is then used to produce physical goods often by actual criminal groups and p2p filesharing is insulting.

But here is the thing, Copyright is designed to prompt the creation of the arts for the public good. If some action is going to be banned for the harm it does, you should be able to demonstrate that it actually does more harm than good. Not protecting someone's business model because technology has changed under it. In the presence of a literal paradigm shift that zero-cost copying represents to IP, you need to actually ask if copyright is even working as desired for the public good.

Something to appease both sides in this case, but do it above-board without the damn sneaking around.

The idea that both sides need to be 'appeased' is never going to go anywhere, since content distributors are largely only going to be happy with, near, total control of the the works they own. And they have a number of functioanlly bought US senators who tow the line very very well, and massive lobbying to keep buying the laws they want.

This is not going to change any time soon.

Depends on how much money I have, doesn't it?

You are ignoring that the personal budget is zero sum game. You can't just, legally, print your own money, nor can you spend money which has already been spent (without eventually paying for it). And as a working American, statistically you are likely to have less holidays, work longer for less pay then a non-trivial amount of the 'non-poor' world. No kidding you had less free time.

Then again, aside from flying, most of what I do for entertainment is pretty cheap. That's not because of extreme budget self-discipline, but because much of what I enjoy just happily doesn't cost a whole lot of money.

That's fairly rare, and completely ignores networking effects* and peer pressure to stay current that is present in youths.

*Network effect is when something has value because more people use it, and gets more value the more people use it. Multiplayer video games are actually a good example of this, the telephone is a classic example of this.

The thing is, I'm one of those creative types - and I've had my work stolen and re-sold by someone else.

As in literially stolen? Physically taken from you so you couldn't use it? Did they submit a DMCA takedown request and force your own work to be pull by whatever hosting provider you use?

So please don't give me that bullshit that copyright violation NEVER hurts the artist when I know from personal experience that it certainly can. That theft didn't give me "word of mouth" or lead to more sales, it took money that should have been mine.

No, that money was not yours and, in all likelihood, never had a chance to be yours either. Fictional or editorial writing is an amazingly horrible field to try to make money in unless a) you have a publisher and make it big b) are being payed to write, generally periodic articles, and then the value is the eyeballs you pull in for ads & rep, and the actual writing last. There are people who write series of multipule books with each book longer than the damn bible, and then insane people who edit it all for free! This isn't unique, it's suprisingly common. And the situation for short stories is even worse.

I'm really am tired of people who think they can "create" some sort of IP and some how "deserve" to be payed when the marginal cost distribution cost is zero and they are not only competing with hundred of millions of other people the physical borders which used to retard the spread of ideas to a crawl have vanished, and to boot the stuff in all likelihood not that unique. That somehow thier business model deserves to be enshrined by law as economically viable when it runs counter to the very realities that modern technology has achieved. With modern communication, people on the otherside of the world can know before you can cross the room.

As copyright holder it is my prerogative to either release the work or not, to charge or not.

Yes, you get to make the decision on if to release it or not. But the hard reality is once it is released, your control over practically evaporates. There is a thread over in user fiction about first rights, the entire rational behind that is once it's been published people already know about it, it's out in the wild. This has it's origins in the fact that production of the material and distribution of said material costs money. Competing with an already existing product that is identical is vastly less profitable, and quite risky.

And now, once it's being distributed electronically the cost for it to be copied via stuff like p2p is effectively zero. So it's even worse.

Most copyright holders actually do want their stuff out there

Fun fact; companies holding the copyright for something can often sit on it for a long time since it isn't worth the effort to develop but by sitting on it and not selling it they deny others the ability to profit from it. Human and companies have radically different behaviour patterns, and I really wish people would stop projecting human qualities on the legally psychopathic personhood that companies are.

[mr friendly guy]

I think Broomstick once mentioned an article she wrote in an aviation magazine which was copied by another. Perhaps this is what she is referring to by the fact that she lost income.

[Xon]

Its frightfully easy to find cases of copyright violation harming an artist.

Actually, the bit the artist of The Oatmeal was bitching about was that they stripped all attribution to the original artist from the images before they got uploaded elsewhere. But this is fundementally an unavoidable issue because bit's don't come with ownership/creator labels. Sure you can watermark, but technology exists for removing watermarks and they people have a lot of time on thier hands todo it.

Also note; the guy offers the comics for free. He makes money on the merchandice.

And interestingly enough it shows how hard it is to defend copyright when you are a lone artist.

I would more say futile. The economics and practicalities of it are just against you.

You don't think that time was stolen from artists/producers/etc. that produce entertainment only to have it copied for free? They've invested the time they did only so that they can make money from it, not have it spread around by bit torrent people. Earlier in this thread Xon offered a definition of stealing: "... That's the dictionary and legal definition of stealing; depriving the owner of thier property by taking it without payment or authorization." The point of my analogy was to make it clear that even if someone's property isn't stolen, downloading music/movies is still immoral because the creators of the music/movies are being robbed of the time and effort they invested in its creation.

A business or person has no legal or moral right to potential customers for thier products.

If you really want to be paid for a product, get payment up front and get a contract to cover any cost over runs. Any payment after you have created the product is a gamble that there will be enough willing paying customers to make it worth it. Business all the damn time fail because they bring a new product to the market, someone else saw it and liked it and brings a better product to the market and takes thier customers away. This is held as desirable by most people.

That the competing product just happens to be a copy of your own product doesn't make it illegal, or even immoral. Microsoft's biggest compedetor has always been the past version of thier existing OS and Office software suits. For them, software piracy just means more people who knows how to use thier stuff. Hint; training is expensive, and someone knowing how to use a key productivity app will generally be hired over someone who doesn't.

I think Broomstick once mentioned an article she wrote in an aviation magazine which was copied by another. Perhaps this is what she is referring to by the fact that she lost income.

Ah yes, I remember that now.

Saddly it really doesn't change much. Ripping a magazine length article is something most people could do in an afternoon or perhaps a bit longer. With OCR, you would spend more time checking it for typos than anything else. The written word easily has some of the lowest barriers to entry copying for creative 'stuff' non-digitally.

[evilsoup]

Xon, your position seems to be that copyright infringement is easy, and is therefore moral. Is that correct?

[TheHammer]

*coughbullshitcough*

IF you have a free copy, you keep using the free copy. You may go to a concert, if a concert for that particular band happens to be playing in a geographically convenient location. If its free software in your possession, then you're going to keep using the free copy. Don't honestly expect me to believe in this concept of the "honorable pirate" who will, at his leisure, decide to go make a rightful purchase of IP that he has already downloaded illegally.

I was given a copy of Oblivion on the PC. Downloaded copy on a DVD-R. Loved it so much I ended up purchasing the game and all of its content three times over. I downloaded GTA3 for the PC. Loved it so much I bought the game twice.

I'd argue that this exception is so rare as to be irrelevent. Incidentally, why would you buy a game multiple times? Did you lose your previous copies, or were you simply that impressed that you felt the game was worth two to three time the asking price?

[TheHammer]

The rise of instruments like Spotify, grooveshark and youtube kinda suggests that the companies have realized that free distribution of their works to stimulate people into buying stuff is the way to go. Heck, just a few months ago, the recording industry lambasted the German IP agency because they blocked hundreds of legal and illegal uploads of their songs on youtube. Why? Because they lost out of ad money and free advertisement.

So the argument that artists and copyright holders are unilaterally against filesharing and that filesharing disturbs them greatly holds no water.

I don't think that's what anyone is arguing. A copyright holder can do whatever the hell they want with their IP. If they wish to allow content they own to be file shared, then more power to them. If they want to limit it to only excerpts to give people a taste before they make a purchase, again more power to them. The argument essentially centers around unauthorized distribution, not opposition to file sharing as a whole.

[TheHammer]

*coughbullshitcough*

IF you have a free copy, you keep using the free copy. You may go to a concert, if a concert for that particular band happens to be playing in a geographically convenient location. If its free software in your possession, then you're going to keep using the free copy. Don't honestly expect me to believe in this concept of the "honorable pirate" who will, at his leisure, decide to go make a rightful purchase of IP that he has already downloaded illegally.

I did this in the past every time I downloaded something illegally (I no longer do it). I would download a copy of a music album or a film, in terrible quality, and then go buy the $30 Blu-ray, the $15 album, the $15 DVD, etc. People do it.

That's not an apples to apples comparison. As you noted yourself, the quality was poor so you made a purchase of superior version. The problem is that today you can get that same Blu-ray quality thanks to the much wider availability of broadband. To say nothing of software piracy, of which there never was a loss of quality.

[K. A. Pital]

With zero costs of distribution, shouldn't we really be all supportive of greater competition? Come on! Technology demands it!

Look at it that way: only movies which make it big at the box office will survive, among blockbusters. That means B-movie crap can't survive relying on DVD, etc. sales. Arthouse movies are lossy anyway, sometimes they don't get any screening. In fact, free distribution channels becoming more popular will propel an arthouse or independent movie to mass viewings if it is really good due to the viral spread of advice on stuff. Ergo, no damage done.

Audio industry: bands either "go big" and survive via money from tours and concerts which can't be replaced by CD sales, or die. CD sales die. Independent bands do not operate a profit anyway and thus get a bonus due to free-distribution channels becoming more popular. Independent bands can now reach millions of people if their music is really good. No damage done.

Uh... book industry: books have never been a purely commercial venture; some of the greatest masterpieces were created by their authors without the desire to get lots of cash or get any cash at all. Since book writing is not that well-paid a job, most authors have other sources of income and spend free time on writing novels and such. Independent literature gets a boost, since distribution is more readily available and free distribution channels become more popular.

What will be pushed out? Mediocre crap that is "not good enough" to become a blockbuster and get enough cash at the cinema, concert, or whatever. That is only desireable. Both poles of art - arthouse and big-box-office movies and bands that rake in lots of cash on concerts will get a huge boost.

[Thanas]

I think Broomstick once mentioned an article she wrote in an aviation magazine which was copied by another. Perhaps this is what she is referring to by the fact that she lost income.

But that is not what is discussed here. That is plagiarism.

[Aniron]

I did this in the past every time I downloaded something illegally (I no longer do it). I would download a copy of a music album or a film, in terrible quality, and then go buy the $30 Blu-ray, the $15 album, the $15 DVD, etc. People do it.

That's not an apples to apples comparison. As you noted yourself, the quality was poor so you made a purchase of superior version. The problem is that today you can get that same Blu-ray quality thanks to the much wider availability of broadband. To say nothing of software piracy, of which there never was a loss of quality.

A Blu-ray rip, which is what I used to download, is poor quality compared to the disc. It is not even close to the same quality, as you claim. 4mbps < 36mbps.

[ThomasP]

The point of my analogy was to make it clear that even if someone's property isn't stolen, downloading music/movies is still immoral because the creators of the music/movies are being robbed of the time and effort they invested in its creation.

My analogy to the topic at hand is valid, you apparently agree with the point I was trying to make (theft doesn't need to involve physical property), and you're apparently just too stupid to follow what's going on in this thread.

Is it still stealing if I go to my friend's house and watch a movie without paying for it, or if I check a book out of the library? In both instances, one purchase has been viewed by multiple parties, making it functionally, if not legally, equivalent to the example.

Does this also count as a theft of services?

(The answer is no, and there's a reason why, but I'm curious as to your answer.)

[Broomstick]

But frankly your mixing criminal copyright infringement which is then used to produce physical goods often by actual criminal groups and p2p filesharing is insulting.

I don't give a fuck if you think my opinion on copyright law is somehow “insulting”.

But here is the thing, Copyright is designed to prompt the creation of the arts for the public good.

Where do you get that?

Why isn't the good of the creator factored in that? Or do you seriously think people will continue to produce high quality work if they receive nothing in return? Isn't the public good served by allowing artists to profit from their work?

Then again, aside from flying, most of what I do for entertainment is pretty cheap. That's not because of extreme budget self-discipline, but because much of what I enjoy just happily doesn't cost a whole lot of money.

That's fairly rare, and completely ignores networking effects* and peer pressure to stay current that is present in youths.

Why should my income suffer because teenagers haven't grown the fuck up and learned to resist peer pressure?

The thing is, I'm one of those creative types - and I've had my work stolen and re-sold by someone else.

As in literially stolen? Physically taken from you so you couldn't use it? Did they submit a DMCA takedown request and force your own work to be pull by whatever hosting provider you use?

Yes, fucktard, it was stolen. A man took a draft of a non-fiction article I was writing and submitted it under his name for publication and accepted the money for that work – a work he had no part in creating. I contacted the publisher, proved it was my work, and the publisher “made it right” to the extent that he paid me for the article and printed a correction in the next issue of the magazine.

However, it was NOT my first choice for publication. Magazines want first publication rights, they are NOT interested in publishing something that has already appeared elsewhere. That jackass stealing my work stole from me the chance to submit that work to a magazine that paid higher rates.

So no, asshole, I didn't need to submit a “DMCA takedown” because – SURPRISE! - print media still exists. And really, it's worse than that, because there are still some copies of that first article drifting around with someone else's name on it that can not be undone. Fortunately for me, the story of how this went down has been widely passed around the aviation community so most folks know that's really MY work... but not all of them.

The magazine did, later, purchase permission to reproduce the article on line, and there is was correctly attributed to me.

So please don't give me that bullshit that copyright violation NEVER hurts the artist when I know from personal experience that it certainly can. That theft didn't give me "word of mouth" or lead to more sales, it took money that should have been mine.

No, that money was not yours and, in all likelihood, never had a chance to be yours either.

The fuck it wasn't. For several years I wrote articles on ultralight flying and general aviation, and it paid for part of my private license. I was selling an article a month on average for close to three years. SO DON'T FUCKING TELL ME THERE WAS NEVER ANY CHANCE FOR THAT MONEY TO BE MINE. What the FUCK is wrong with you – do you find it THAT inconceivable I am an actual published writer?

Let's review, shall we?
1) someone STOLE a draft of an article I was writing and submitted it as his
2) when the publisher found out what had happened he, in fact, paid me for the article – in other words, he paid for it twice. I don't know if he went after the thief or not, but apparently the publisher sure as hell thought I was entitled to money, or why else would he have sent it to me?

Fictional or editorial writing is an amazingly horrible field to try to make money in unless a) you have a publisher and make it big b) are being payed to write, generally periodic articles, and then the value is the eyeballs you pull in for ads & rep, and the actual writing last.

I'm sorry – where did I ever say I was writing fiction? I didn't – you ASSUMED I was. In fact, my published works have all been NON-fiction (which one exception, a short story over 30 years ago, so I think that was a bit of a fluke).

So fuck you.

As copyright holder it is my prerogative to either release the work or not, to charge or not.

Yes, you get to make the decision on if to release it or not. But the hard reality is once it is released, your control over practically evaporates. There is a thread over in user fiction about first rights, the entire rational behind that is once it's been published people already know about it, it's out in the wild.

And THAT's why the thief did me actual harm – he “released into the wild” a draft of my work, which I considered unfinished and unrefined to MY standards, took money for it, and denied me that decision to release the article or not.

[Kryten]

Yes, fucktard, it was stolen. A man took a draft of a non-fiction article I was writing and submitted it under his name for publication and accepted the money for that work – a work he had no part in creating. I contacted the publisher, proved it was my work, and the publisher “made it right” to the extent that he paid me for the article and printed a correction in the next issue of the magazine.

However, it was NOT my first choice for publication. Magazines want first publication rights, they are NOT interested in publishing something that has already appeared elsewhere. That jackass stealing my work stole from me the chance to submit that work to a magazine that paid higher rates.

So no, asshole, I didn't need to submit a “DMCA takedown” because – SURPRISE! - print media still exists. And really, it's worse than that, because there are still some copies of that first article drifting around with someone else's name on it that can not be undone. Fortunately for me, the story of how this went down has been widely passed around the aviation community so most folks know that's really MY work... but not all of them.

The magazine did, later, purchase permission to reproduce the article on line, and there is was correctly attributed to me.

How is any of this remotely relevant? How is the sharing of information for no fee remotely comparable to plagiarism for profit?

[ThomasP]

But here is the thing, Copyright is designed to prompt the creation of the arts for the public good.

Where do you get that?

Why isn't the good of the creator factored in that? Or do you seriously think people will continue to produce high quality work if they receive nothing in return? Isn't the public good served by allowing artists to profit from their work?

Making works available for public consumption has been the explicit goal of copyright law since the Statute of Anne, which granted authors a temporary monopoly on the work so that booksellers of the time couldn't hoard it. The US Constitution and English common law both build on this, treating copyright as a balance between public good and the rights of creators by "promoting the progress of science and arts".

The current belief that copyright exists because creators gots to get paid has come about largely thanks to MPAA and RIAA lobbying, and an unfortunate consequence of having culture transformed into a commodity. Guaranteeing income to creators has never been a historical purpose (at least not a primary purpose) of copyright law. As Stas Bush noted in a previous post, through most of history being an artist, musician, or creator had no guarantees of income as we've been accustomed to.

[Simon_Jester]

How is any of this remotely relevant? How is the sharing of information for no fee remotely comparable to plagiarism for profit?

Because they're interconvertible to an extent.

If I write something and aim to sell it, I have to have some assurance that I will in fact get paid. Otherwise, I don't write with the aim to sell. I might write anyway- but the quality and quantity of product will go down, especially for nonfiction, because people won't have the time, energy, or incentive to work hard making sure they get the material done.

It's important to have a copyright system which makes works available to the public- that's why in olden days before Disney bribed Congress, we had this concept of "public domain." But it's also important to have some incentive to create the stuff in the first place; there's a balance there. Historically, being an artist, musician, or creative writer wasn't a guaranteed income... but at least it was something you could do for some money, like being a street performer in your spare time. You could supplement an income, you could hope to make a living if you were good at it, you could do something.

Even an author who doesn't ask for a guaranteed income stream for their work can reasonably complain when all opportunity to profit by it is simply grabbed out of their hands by a pack of anonymous nitwits shouting "PUBLIC GOOD! FIGHT THE MAN!"

[Kryten]

I was simply pointing out that the sharing of another persons work is a very different situation from someone taking credit for somebody else's work, and that the scenario needed a lot of differing details (e.g. about first rights) to introduce any actual provable loss, rendering it entirely useless as an analogy for the situations discussed in the rest of the thread.

[Broomstick]

How is any of this remotely relevant? How is the sharing of information for no fee remotely comparable to plagiarism for profit?

First, I was asked a direct question: "Was it actually stolen?" The answer is yes, it was.

Second, if someone wants to give their stuff away for free they can already do that. The problem is when people take it for free, and then distribute it further for free, when the copyright owner does not want to do that.

Does that answer your question?

[Alyeska]

I'd argue that this exception is so rare as to be irrelevent. Incidentally, why would you buy a game multiple times? Did you lose your previous copies, or were you simply that impressed that you felt the game was worth two to three time the asking price?

I first bought Oblivion in every seperate piece. Then I bought the GOTY version. Then I bought the slim-DVD case GOTY version. I bought GTA 3. Then I bought the GTA Collection.

[Thanas]

How is any of this remotely relevant? How is the sharing of information for no fee remotely comparable to plagiarism for profit?

First, I was asked a direct question: "Was it actually stolen?" The answer is yes, it was.

Second, if someone wants to give their stuff away for free they can already do that. The problem is when people take it for free, and then distribute it further for free, when the copyright owner does not want to do that.

Does that answer your question?

Again, it is not the same as the situation we are discussing here.

[Broomstick]

Well, as usual the topic is wandering a bit, but I was asked a direct question so I answered it. I thought answering direct questions was more or less required around here.

[Molyneux]

If you were given a choice to buy an item or receive it for free, what would you do?

Assuming that there are no such people who would pay for the item but now just rather get it for free is the crux of what seems to be those who want file sharing. So please, stop giving us headaches all around and stop thinking there is no harm done.

Quite often? If I want to support the producer of the item, I go out of my way to pay for it.

[Ryan Thunder]

Quite often? If I want to support the producer of the item, I go out of my way to pay for it.

Then you're a decent human being. Most people are just selfish bastards.