This meme needs to die [1]. A fisherman doesn't care that a dolphin isn't a fish - when he calls it that, he means that it swims in the sea, gets caught in his net, and tastes delicious. Similarly, Murdoch's perspective is that of the copyright investor - he sees the purpose of copyright law as creating and protecting a new class of property in order to encourage its production. His assets are invested in the production of this "new-style-property" which the federal government promised to protect (just as it does material property). From his point of view, the nature of distribution of that property just aren't relevant.

1. The cognitive bias is so painfully blatant: "the guy I disagree with is a liar bullshitting idiots, or is an idiot himself"? Come on.

Cognitive bias? Why restate the assertion with loaded terms?

Are you saying that it is not intellectually dishonest to equate copyright infringement with theft? Theft deprives its victim of property.

The bias is the desire to demonize someone perceived as an adversary as a liar and an idiot, even if it isn't an accurate model of their behavior. Demonizing someone is nice if you want to start a lynching mob, but not if you want to understand their point of view.

Are you saying that it is not intellectually dishonest to equate copyright infringement with theft?

Precisely. Just as it isn't "intellectually dishonest" to equate a dolphin with a fish, from the point of view of an guy in a boat with a spear.

Theft deprives its victim of property.

Technical detail. Murdoch is investing billions of dollars into what he sees as a "factory manufacturing IP". To him, the output of that factory is his property. Think of it as a magic chicken machine - if you have a machine that makes chickens out of nothing, does that justify stealing chickens from you? After all, you can make more copies of at no cost.

Well this seems incorrect on its face. e.g. Copyright law

To my knowledge, copyright does not even address physical property. Thus it does not treat physical property the same as intellectual property.

They are markedly different. Equating them is, as I rather cicuitiously said, intellectually dishonest. Theft denies a person the possession of the property, copyright infringement does not.

Copyright as it has been formulated, to encourage movement of works into the public domain in return for a limited monopoly, is a fantastic legal device. But the likes of Murdoch have perverted this deal - I don't deny content creators a right to profit from their work. However, the major corporations and the governments that have acceded to their demands have denied the free enjoyment of much work which should by now have entered the public domain.

The terms of copyright should have reduced in-line with lower cost reproduction methods but instead it has increased. If there is any theft involved in all this it is theft from the public domain.

Intellectual property is not really a "new class" of property it has been around for centuries and began precipitating into law with Queen Anne's Statute in the early 1700s. It is simply a reflection that a man should earn from the fruit of his labours whether they be physical or ethereal fruit.

If someone infringes on your copyright, you can still continue selling licences as well as fully transfer ownership of the intellectual property. That's why it's not stealing. Note: I'm not condoning copyright infringement, just pointing out that it's not equivalent to stealing.

I don't see the debate you're referring to. When the music industry chooses to redefine a word, pointing out that that's what they're doing is sufficient. I took the extra step of actually repeating the definitions here, but that shouldn't be necessary.

1. There must be some executive who agrees that there is a difference between copying and theft, and;

2. There must be some executive who agrees that since there is a fundamental difference between an act that gives to one without depriving another and an act which gives to one while depriving another, there must therefore be a fundamental difference between copying and theft, and;

3. There must be some executive who understands the difference between copying and theft.

The first one makes it plain that there is debate as to whether X and Y are different. The second puts your terms on display for debate. The third assumes them.

1. Stated (as fact) that there is a fundamental difference between copyright infringement and physcal theft.

2. Expressed dismay at the apparent lack of understanding of the above fact by the music / movie industries.

Expressing dismay because someone else seems unaware of something you hold as a fact is not a logical fallacy in and of itself. It may be possible to show the fact is incorrect and the dismay therefore unnecessary, but that doesn't make it a fallacy.

The statement is couched as being about point number two, but if we say either "yes, there are music executives who understand" or "no, you're wrong, no music executives understand," either way we are forced to agree with the first point.

For the record, I agree with both points, but I also acknowledge that the matter is subject to debate.

I quote: This fallacy is often confused with begging the question, which offers a premise no more plausible than, and often just a restatement of, the conclusion.

It does become a loaded question if you ask a music industry exec: "Are you aware of the fundamental difference between copyright infringement and stealing?" But, as the wikipedia article says, that's not the same as begging the question. In any case, it's not a loaded question, since it's not a question to begin with.

The original poster did not ask us to answer the question about the record / film industry, while accepting his other statement. He was saying "I believe that there is a fundamental difference between X and Y, and am dismayed by the lack of understanding of this difference in the record / film industry". I doubt he had formal logic in mind.

EDIT: But you do make some very points, and I'm willing to concede that I may be completely wrong about what the original guy was trying to say, or how it should be interpreted. I really should spend less time on HN :)

Thanks, I learned something from your points and research.

There is a need to state the obvious when you are talking about record industry executives who are stating that they disagree with what you or I consider to be obvious.

If it was that obvious, there wouldn't be any debate, would there?

Well, I guess you automatically "win" whatever discussion you are having when you open with those four words. I presume the logical next step is for us to switch into Monty Python skit mode:

"There is no debate."

"Yes there is."

"No there isn't."

"Yes there is."

"No there isn't."

"Well the RIAA is debating you, so yes there is."

"No they aren't. They can't simply make a rhetorical point conflating two different things and call that a debate. They have to make something that I agree is a valid debating point."

"No they don't."

"Yes they do..."

Talking about trivial consumer products brings a lot of emotion into this kind of debate.

How does this differ from digital services such as FathomDB or Heroku? If I crack their service somehow so that I can use their product to help my company make more money without paying them, am I a thief?

If you manage to use it on their servers, with the associated running costs (disk space, CPU and RAM usage, support if you're a clever cracker) then you are in fact a thief - you are stealing their resources.