That legal definition was created before the digital age. At the end of the day you are taking something that doesn't belong to you, a product. Someone has put work in to it so you can enjoy it, but they are asking a reasonable fee for their work, the reason it is reasonable is because so many people buy it. You can get a game for $40 or a movie for even less because they are asking a fraction of what it cost to make because of the many people buying it.
Reasonable? well thats debatable, since there are so much "junk" out there that definitely are not worth the price they ask. Not to forget from all the cough... lies... cough commercials use to sell there products. Ever seen those channels past midnight who tries to sell something wonderful and its definitely the best in the world. When you actually get the stuff in your box and takes it out, it almost falls apart.
Thats how the digital world is as well. Just like this program i needed, so the first thing i did were google it and of course if found alot legally. Now these place haveing this program did not only contain what it was supposed to do, they contained malware/spyware, several other unwanted programs (i guess they were supposed to popup on xp but didnt as i used vista), some even contained virus... and they wanted 20-30 dollars for it... The next thing you can imagen what happend i pirated the exact same program and there it didnt contain any of those such things.
Okey they were abit on the extream side, but it happens everywhere and its getting worse.
Take a movie for an exsample, you see this awesome trailer and thinks dang, this movie i gotta buy, once you do, you find out what the trailer had where the 5min of action as you thought it would have for most of the movie. And there you sit with a DVD of a film that you never would have bought if you know before hand.
Of course certain things does have a aeasonable asking price for there film ect, if it is worth the money in your ears/eyes, but many times you are being mislead and "stole" your money for something you thought otherwise.
How do you expect to have the kinds of entertainment we have these days if people don't pay for it? Copying a movie or game without paying for it is stealing, anyone who wants to argue against that is arguing over semantics, not the moral truth of the matter.
Sure they should get paid, like anyone else doing a job for a living, problem of today is that you can actually see this product in full before buying and then deside if you think if its really worth its "Reasonable" price. Maybe this is the problem, too much "junk" not getting sold anymore.
Wheres the moral truth a company should uphold for its customers? is it morally right for them to trick poor souls into buying stuff that are broken, not upholding what were promished?
Anyone who wants to argue against that are differently on the wrong path of ethics.
To put it short i believe there are 3 kinds of people, tho it may warry due to situations:
- True customers - those that buy products, based on trust or misguidance to the company
- The cautious customer - The one who may pirate to check it out, due to being afraid of being robbed of his or hers hard earned cash
- The thief - one who has no intension of buying a product, may even profit from the stolen.
hmm, i thought i would put this in "short" lol, i apologize for something is out of place, as im Danish so some may have been said abit wrong 