













Comments     Threshold


Sharing is immoral?
By SHawk on 1/11/2011 4:47:43 PM , Rating: 2
I don't understand, what is wrong with file sharing? People share things with each other, whether it is happiness, food, knowledge (books) or movies. Putting aside the legal argument for a moment, if my friend gives me his LOTR DVD, is he doing something that is inherently wrong? Is he an immoral/bad person for sharing? I don't think so. If I start a local service for swapping or trading books/movies/music among friends, am I a bad/evil person or a thief? Should sharing be outlawed and everyone be made to purchase every single object that they want to use?

We have to differentiate between the moral and legal arguments here. Copyright law was never meant to stop people from sharing things from one another. The original intent of the law was to promote innovation by guaranteeing the original author a certain period of exclusivity/monopoly on his invention/creation. It was to stop people from profiting off other's work and giving the original innovator his due. Over time though, copyright law has been converted into a sort of weapon to be used by big business to make profits by unethical and immoral means. Today, the copyrights of the songs we buy aren't owned by the artists, but by a cartel of big music labels who impose absurd levels of control on the creation and dissemination of the artists' works.

The virtue of sharing things with one another has been turned into a crime punishable by jail or heavy fines that would bankrupt any middle class individual. Ideally, these big music labels would like every single person of every family to buy their songs/movies separately to maximize their profit. And they have been steadily making progress in their aims with the help of politicians, who they openly provide millions of dollars to in the form of campaign donations and other "causes".

Democracy has become a sham. Big business has so much power that they can engineer legislation of laws that favor them over the common man, consumer rights be damned. We live in a world that has become a victim of excessive corporatism-favoring the rich over the poor, the powerful over the weak. The only way to turn things around is to reform the very nature of the democratic process to come up with a government that is truly representative of its people.

RE: Sharing is immoral?
By SHawk on 1/11/2011 4:53:35 PM , Rating: 2
Am I evil because I refuse to comply in protecting a particular business model? Would I be a bad person if I refuse to share my mp3s with my kid because of 'copyright laws'?

What makes you a bad person?

Is it the same thing that makes you a criminal?

If not, don't we need to re-write the laws to reflect common sense and promote justice?

