A builder:
- is hired by a single client
- to build a house for many months
- and is compensated throughout the engagement with an hourly/daily/monthly wage or salary,
which is pretty much guaranteed (unless being let off for typically external reasons).
- also takes many months to complete a book/movie/game but
- he is not hired by any single client
- his income is directly related to the reception of the end product by the audience.
Before that, authors/actors/composers etc. were compensated either through commissions for the creation of the work (with the expectation that it might be copied by others) or for performances of the works, or by benefactors.
Or, as the vast majority of authors today, who expend the effort to create works without getting their work published for profit (or at all), they were often not compensated for their work at all. In fact, like with vanity publishing today, any number of authors would have encountered substantial expensive in getting their own works spread, with no hope of recouping those expenses.
Modern copyright did not start until the Statue of Anne in 1710, and did not extend to the majority of the world until much later.
Whether or not returning to that state is desirable or not is certainly open to debate, but history does give us plenty of examples of possible ways of doing so.
We need new software, because: a) old software is unavailable anymore (due to copyright), b) everyone else uses the new one (due to advertising), so we need it for interoperation, c) old software doesn’t recieve bug fixes, and copyright prevents people from disassembling and modifying software themselves (luckily some countries like Belarus and Russia have better laws and allow this, but previous points still apply).
If the companies stopped producing new software because of lack of money, it wouldn’t stop innovations — if something is really useful, people will still impement it at least because it’s useful for themselves.
If we were allowed to copy information freely, the old software would suffice for most tasks (with occasional bugfixes that could be made by users themselves).
What's dishonest about it? The mental gymnastics to rationalize their actions when it's really about "I don't have to pay for this and there are no consequences if I don't so I'm not going to".
What I've been saying is that for many people it is not a rationalization. They genuinely believe, because of arguments from history and logic that sharing isn't wrong. They aren't jumping through mental hoops, this is their honest belief after considering the alternatives and arguments.
Now that isn't to say that there aren't some, maybe many people for whom it is purely rationalization, but your posts seem to entirely ignore any other possibility.
And what is dishonest about that?
When a builder builds a house he gets paid for his work. If he wants more money, he has to do more building. He can't just sit back and take a payment every time someone enters that building for the rest of his life.
Nurses, doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, mechanics, service staff, chefs, teachers all have the same deal. You can't multiply your work by the people who benefit from it forever (maybe everyone who likes the person whose life you saved?) and get paid by each one.
Now to me, that seems sane and normal. You want more money, you do more work. Getting the government to pass special laws allowing you to extract rent from your creative endevour for every person who experiences it going into the future is what seems dishonest to me.