No. This 'semantic tangent' has very real consequences. The propaganda equating copyright infringement with robbery is bullshit, but bullshit with a purpose: getting the government to pick up the task of copyright enforcement, because it's too costly to make sense for the lobbying organizations to do it themselves.

If we accepted your handwaving, people charged with actually robbing someone's home and people charged with downloading half a season of Glee would face the same sentencing standards. That is obviously deranged.

So, no. The debate must continue, until consensus is reached and the matter fixed in law.

> If we accepted your handwaving, people charged with actually robbing someone's home and people charged with downloading half a season of Glee would face the same sentencing standards.

Can you expand on this? Seems like a non-sequitur.

You are equating making a copy with theft.

While I'm happy for you that you feel comfortable deciding that this can be put to bed, clearly many people feel differently.

I'd argue that merely the observation that many intelligent, morally sensitive people here on HN feel differently should be enough to realize that this is not a 'tangent' that can be 'put to bed'. Why would you even put it like that, knowing that there is such disagreement?

Because it's a purely semantic argument (in the literal sense of being an argument about the definition of words). There is no fundamental universal truth underlying whether it's OK to refer to piracy informally as "stealing".

If you wanted to pay for it, what does it make it?