I'm not sure if i'm allowed to share this - but it made me gasp

[mugloch]

Very true, there's a difference between commercial "sharing" (essentially counterfeiting) and non-commercial person-to-person sharing, although these can both mean that many thousands of copies are being shared.

[...]The amount of people who have copies of the book isn't important because the people who want to support the author will, and the others don't matter because they're not "taking" anything.
.

The problem (as php_daemon was alluding to) is that when there is commercial counterfeiting then there is an alternative paid product. I know people who buy knock-off DVDs at the local market. These people aren't thinking about what they're paying for, they just see "cheap = good", that money of course will never get back to the producer, and the user considers the item paid for so has no moral obligation to support the producer, that's a problem for sure.

[mugloch]

Everyone, it's been nice talking to you, especially seeing the viewpoints of people involved in a very different creative field than me. I don't think I have anything useful left to say.

Cheers.
Scott

[hash]

here's another "intangible infinite good"

i wait until the appropriate moment, then take a picture of you picking your nose, make a bazillion copies, and post them all over town

this doesn't impact you because i have taken nothing from you

Oh come on.

[awasson]

Very true, there's a difference between commercial "sharing" (essentially counterfeiting) and non-commercial person-to-person sharing, although these can both mean that many thousands of copies are being shared.
But my contention is that scale is not the issue because these are intangible infinite goods. The amount of copies doesn't impact the creator because they're copies, nothing is taken from the creator. The amount of people who have copies of the book isn't important because the people who want to support the author will, and the others don't matter because they're not "taking" anything.
Again, no-one is saying this is legal, but the laws are designed to deal with commercial industry-to-industry relations, they were never designed to attack individuals. The Jammie Thomas Rasset trial is a good example, she was definitely breaking the law, but a fine of $1.92 million for sharing 24 songs, is just a tad disproportionate.

Although I don't agree with illegal music file sharing, I think the RIAA should be buried because they are no better than patent trolls making vast fortunes off of lawsuits and in the case of lawsuits like the one above they intend to sue people into the poorhouse. Which doesn't help anybody except the lawyers involved.

Back on point, I find the following wrinkle with your argument that the amount of free copies floating around doesn't affect the author/creator... For sake of argument let's say an individual spends their lifetime cultivating knowledge on a financially lucrative subject and they also happen to be a great teacher so they decide to focus their energies on writing their life's work, a series of books that revolutionize the subject. Let's say that anyone who buys a set of these books will have an immediate advantage in the field because it does such a good job of explaining the subject. The books are a success and the author can make a living off of his life's works

...Except that a number of people pirate the books and flood the internet with copies of the book so that anyone can get a copy. As a matter of fact, there are so many copies that you can't help but find them when you're searching for information on the subject. Now instead of going to the authors distributor, people are just taking a "free" copy off the web without a second thought for the author because it's so easy to just download a copy.

What if the proceeds of the books were going to support a hospital for sick children or an after school program for poor kids... What about the children

Yes, I'm just messing around but that is a plausible scenario and I did some quick searches on Google... "jQuery book download" returned Sitepoint's book over at Rapidshare and "jQuery novice to ninja" found a site called Filetube which I'm guessing isn't one of the authorized distributors.

[Sagewing]

Did we learn anything in this thread? I learned that they are more people than I realized who were not only willing to pirate things, but were also willing to construct a whole mentality around it. Themes included some publishers 'being rich enough' or 'having made enough money' and the biggest one, "there is no damage to the publisher so everything is ok'.

I still struggle with my same old question. If these arguments hold water, then shouldn't they be equally applicable for tangibles? There are examples of tangibles that can have unauthorized use without damage to the owner - why do these arguments not apply to those?

If the idea that a lack of damages to the owner changes the equation, then why is that scenario is exclusive to digital goods?

Of course, I think everyone has settled into a position and without some focus it will be hard to get any further. I did learn a bit about the mentality of those who support piracy, and those who claim not to support it directly but take no issue with it.

[spikeZ]

19 pages is probably enough now. Thanks all for an interesting discussion