If that mean that the creation of arts and musics grind to halt, so be it. That's how a free society work.

Artists, programmers, and everybody else are supposed to die and live by their creation. It is their job to convince everyone else that their career is worth supporting.

Consumer sovereign are sovereigns for a reason, because they have the money. They are your lifeline, and they're alway right.

You can whine about how authors are being ripped off, or you can choose to look at reality and the economics of it. Your choice.

Anxiously awaiting the 19 paragraph response that will clarify this for me further.

I didn't write the previous posts, but decided to chime in with what i thought.

I appreciate arguments that Congress is captive to the "copyright cartel", but it's harder for me to accept the notion that every judge that has ruled against a file sharer has done so because of lobbying. And, if you read the case material, they aren't primarily making those decisions based on the (bad) new laws we're getting about copyright protection --- in fact, I feel like the courts have a pretty decent track record on navigating the bullshit laws Congress is generating. Basic security and circumvention research, for instance, hasn't been shut down.

I understand the point you're making, but I think appeals to different theories and interpretations of the copyright act are ultimately destined to fail.

In my opinion there will be a time when drugs are legalized, and copyright will most likely no longer exist.

I believe that deontological ethical principles(In this case, libertarianism) override any utilitarian scheme to improve the economy.

However, I also found no evidence to suggest copyright and patent improve the economic wellbeing of civilizations. In fact, I feel confident enough to argue that copyright and patents harm economic progress.

While I am open to evidence that copyright and patent can improve the economic condition of men, but I am closed to ethical justification. Unless you can prove why copyright does not violate property rights, my opposition to copyright will remain stern.

EDIT:

I made it very clear that if nobody wants to buy from the authors, artists, programmers, the incentive to produce will suffer.

If this is what the consumer sovereign truly intended, than it is an ethical outcome and an outcome that cannot be changed.

However, it seem to me that copyright has power to reach third-parties, not those who are originally involved in an transaction between authors and buyers.

Accept the reality of it? Accept that things are just going to be stolen and that's that? What kind of society is that? I'd like to think we can rise above being selfish vigilantes who only choose to see things through their own eyes instead of work with society as a whole.

As such, you cannot derives ethical justification for it.

I support property right, and see copyright as a violation of such rights.

Does that mean it's right? Not necessarily. Maybe the laws do need to change. But in the meantime, they are the laws. Taking the laws into your own hand just because you don't agree with them is wrong. And if you're fine with that, then be fine with accepting the consequences when you get caught, too. We need to consider all sides of the story here. File sharers are very selfishly saying "well the law is wrong anyway, so who cares?" which is just their way of justifying stealing. File sharers don't care about what is right or what's wrong, they just want free stuff.

If copyright law needs to change either on a moral ground or a grounds that current infrastructure makes our laws unreasonable, fine. That's great. But let's do this the right way, which gives us the best chance of all parties maintaining their rights.

To steal is to deprive someone of their property.

To copy is to make duplicates of something. There is no deprivation of property occurring.

Therefore, copying is NOT stealing.

Beyond that, I can pretty much copy and paste my last response to be used here. What you or anyone "feels" is correct or logical is completely irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is the law and how we as a society choose to create them and enforce them.

Relevant to who, by what standard, and who this "society" you speak of?

EDIT:

Are we're really even debating the same thing?

EDIT2: I feel that there has been some breakdown in communication.

Accepting the concept of copyright, do you consider $675,000 a proportionate penalty in this case?

Inherent rights?

I want to agree with you that a person who thinks up something and makes it concrete in some form has some special claim on that, but I'm hard pressed to explain how that would be, other than other people all agreeing that is how it should be. That is, it's not a right, but a social convention.