| Mr Khan said: And in come the self-righteous, pretending they're any better than the rest of us. The morality of any singular instance of piracy can be answered by one question: in a world without shared copies of this item, would you buy it through legitimate channels? If yes, then what you're doing is wrong, if no, then it isn't. For you see, if you are not, in actuality, a potential paying customer, no money is lost by you simply taking the item, because you would not have given money even if the item wasn't free to take. This is utilitarian morality at its finest, here. The "damage" done by piracy is hugely overstated, mostly by the same greedy media moguls that tried to shut down the internet because their dinosaur business models can't cope with the real world. |
I don't think that's really a fair argument to make. Apart from the obvious difficulty in gauging the "potentially" of future consumer behaviour (i.e. just because I am not interested in buying a product now doesn't mean I won't be a few months down the line), there still remains serious moral problems with piracy in the instance you have outlined.
Okay, so I have no intention of buying album "X", so therefore it's okay to steal it and enjoy its content while the producers of the album reap no rewards? This is not a morally justifiable position to take. People have the right to own what they create, I don't think anyone should disagree with that. This right gives creators the ability to sell their creation, if they so choose, and to set the terms under which it is sold. If they enter into an agreement with a distributor, such as a record label for example, fine, that's their choice. The point is, they agree how their creation should be distributed. By stealing their creation, even though you claim you would never have spent money on that creation, you trample on the ownership rights of the creator. You have violated their right to choose what to do with their creation, how it is distributed and sold. This is simply not moral.
In addition, by conducting piracy in this way you help to construct an atmosphere of social acceptability towards thievery. You enable thievery by passively promoting it as justifiable practice. Your actions affect others and enable those who may or may not have "bought it anyway" to steal.
I think it's sad that we all can't hold our hands up and say that theft under any name is still theft and it is simply wrong.
