Downloading - disqualifying?

[retdetsgt]

I was talking about P2P. Ripping music is different, which is what JJRC brought up.

Ripping your own CD is one thing, ripping one that someone else paid for is something else. What's the ethical difference in taking music from a friend's CD and taking free music from an anonymous person on the Internet?

[txinvestigator1]

One would think the word "illegal" in the term "illegal downloading" would be a clue.


And there is nothing "murky" about it.

[pafindr]

This thread is sounding a little like a parent talking to their kid.

Dad: Don't bounce the ball in the house.

Kid: Ok. (Kid begins to bounce the ball again)

Dad: I said not to bounce the ball in the house!

Kid: I'm not bouncing the ball, I dribbling it!

[TheWahls]

Please don't misunderstand what I am about to say. I'm not condoning the actions of anyone downloading music illegally, but here's another way of looking at this.

Theft is roughly defined as the act of stealing. Stealing is taking of someone else's property.

Making a copy (need to remember that we're leaving the original intact) of something is not theft in the modern sense. The issue of theft is taking something and leaving the original owner without his item or whatever, and this isn't at all what is going on here. Infringing on someones intellectual property? Sure. Theft... uuuhhhh...