You can have your cake (if its information) and eat it too.
There is talk on HN of piracy, with some folks being a bit self righteous about pirating music (http://ploum.net/post/im-a-pirate) and/or software from corporations they deem problematic (http://littlebitofcode.com/2012/01/18/im-pirating-the-next-version-of-wi...)
Will Davis (a la broadmuse: http://broadmuse.com/piracy) thinks this is wrong and that we should be following the law and not taking it into our own hands (or whatever). HN's main criticism with his post seems to be his lack of capital letters; which is really weak, in my opinion. If it's EZ2READ who gives a f*ck, but I digress, as Will Davis is wrong; and this is what I wish to talk about.
As a full grown adult (in body only) I had a brief encounter with regular petty shoplifting from Walmart. I was traveling around the country at the time; and on a budget. Not that I needed to steal batteries to survive; but I understood it to be true based on a rumor that Walmart would not convict first time offenders if they are attempting to steal less than $25 worth of merchandise.
At the time, I had nothing but bad thoughts toward Wal-mart and felt no compulsion to not steal from them. When relaying this information to my friends and others; they were usually aghast. Many of these people don't shop at wal-mart as a rule, for exactly the same reasons I felt no problem with stealing from them.
My friends who didn't shop at walmart were doing so because they didn't want to promote what they deemed to be an evil business; to support the harm that walmart was/is causing. Yet somehow, my actions, which were arguably damaging walmart even more than simply not shopping there, were somehow wrong.
Suffice to say, I don't think stealing is 'wrong' by some ultimate decree. Foolish, illinformed, juvenile; sure. Maybe even morally wrong afterall; but not because it was *stealing*. Any more than killing someone in self defense is wrong because it is *killing*.
since when does that suddenly mean that you can decide that you are no longer going to pay for products that both legally and morally you are obliged to pay for, yet still use them?
Since approximately the days of AOL 2.x for me. There are certain actions we are morally obligated to take or not to take to keep society working in a way that is beneficial for all of us; and when we are taking or not taking actions that are opposed to a well functioning society, society has created (and continues to create) mechanisms to funnel people into behaving properly.
Sometimes, society's official rules are not properly reflecting an ideal way to funnel people into proper behavior; and as well, sometimes society's official mechanism for changing the funnel is not working properly.
In these cases; it is morally pure to act in ways that help to funnel behavior in a way that makes society better for everyone even, and especially, when society's official rules aren't doing it
I won't go into great detail about unarguably moral actions that were illegal at the time they were taken (every revolution, etc); but suffice to say that legality is not a measurement of morality. The stick we should use to measure morality is helping or hindering society as a whole.
Most governments and sets of laws that have ever been in place in humanity have been less than ideal and granted privilege to a few at the expense of the many. Copyright law is just like this.
You are not obligated, morally, to follow immoral laws. on the contrary, you are obligated, morally, to break them proudly and loudly and get them changed. "Be the change you want to see in the world" is good advice and applies perfectly to draconian copyright laws.
