> Why do you think copyright is ethical?
I think following the law is ethical, and copyright is not only the law, it follows directly from the Constitution.
> If I could photograph food and turn it into food to feed myself, I would certainly do that, even if it was illegal.
Context and perspective. We're talking about a media landscape that is flush with content, to the point where people complain that it's all just rehashed. There's plenty of media to go around.
> It doesn’t deprive the owner of anything.
It deprives someone of their rights, which is something I think pirates don't really care about at all, as it's never considered in the calculus. It's always "what's more convenient for me and my desires to consume particular media, rights be damned". I wish pirates would just be frank and admit this like the other poster who was replying to me.
> I think copyright is designed and biased toward massive corporations to the detriment of society.
Me too. But I also enjoy the rule of law and the hard work of people who make content that I consume.
> There’s lots of injustice in the world. And I think IP leans more towards unjust than just. Do I think creators should be compensated? Yes. Do I think creators’ descendents should be compensated for 90 years? Probably not.
I would feel more sympathetic to this argument if pirates had ever given an inch, or seriously attempted to organize to fix the law in the US over the past 20 years. Instead, they just kept pirating as hard as they could, even when the industry moved toward streaming services, and rationalized their behavior away.
> I also feel like there’s a giant PR effort from wealthy entities against a few individuals and the fact that you’d equate downloading a movie with stealing food is so weird to me that it shows how distorted the discussion is.
So you're saying my strong feelings about copyright infringement are due to a PR campaign, and not a carefully considered position I've come to on my own, through my own experiences as a content creator, artist, and owner of copyrighted works?
I understand that some people are so blasé about violating copyrights, they don't even think they could possibly be doing anything wrong. On the other end of the spectrum are people who have to spend money and resources to defend their rights from violations of law by others. I fully understand that digital media and physical goods are not the same. But I categorically reject that zero people are harmed when copyrights are violated.
> “rights” that only exist because of successful lobbying on behalf of a very tiny industry
As I said, copyright is a fundamental provision of the US Constitution. We can talk about the parameters of "securing for limited Times" but "exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." is not up for debate. The word "exclusive" is important here.
And as for the size of the industry interested in copyright... upending copyright would also upend trademarks and patents. There's a much larger industry (well... all of them) interested in those forms of IP.