> it's still harmful to others and therefore wrong.
If everything that was harmful to others would be seen as wrong we would live in a completely different world. Interestingly, people only make this connection for very few topics.
Anyway, it seems I hit a nerve. I used to be one of those piracy is not stealing people, back when I pirated content. Now that I pay for content I can look back at that person and understand that cognitive dissonance between my notion of myself as a good person and the fact that I was pirating content led me to consider piracy a good thing, or at the least not a bad thing.
Because really, what is being said with the semantics argument "piracy != stealing"? It is about how harmful piracy is, whether it really is as bad as stealing, and fundamentally whether or not we should have copyright at all. If we should have copyright, then we must have legal tools to enforce it, and piracy must be illegal and wrong. If we shouldn't have copyright, then piracy is a form of freedom fighting and should be encouraged.
My opinion on the matter is that we should have copyright, but that it should be more limited in duration, with stronger fair use exceptions (like the right to decrypt for the purpose of backup and archival). I don't care for the semantics argument. Call it piracy or call it stealing, it does not change what is being done: taking things without permission.
I'm not saying that pirating is good. I'm just saying that pirating does not mean "taking things without permission" aka stealing. It's copying things without permission.
P.S. when i was young and poor i used to wear an eye patch, these days i'm paying for stuff.
If everything that was harmful to others would be seen as wrong we would live in a completely different world. Interestingly, people only make this connection for very few topics.