Yes but you realize if you could share more effeciently then sharing would become effectively pirating? The reason sharing is not attacked is simply because today it is very ineffecient.
For the sake of argument consider in the future a CD is downloaded that can not be PIRATED but can be shared or rather GIVEN to another person (ie sharing that CD destroys YOUR copy). Now, imagine if thousands of people pooled together to share everything 24 hours a day? Would you consider this unethetical, wrong, and stealing? This is simply sharing as you have outlined, and is what I alluded to in my message. It is simply EFFECIENTLY sharing.
Furthermore, for the sake of argument assume that computers have become cheaper because people buy them to pirate goods or have in the past. Now, for the sake of argument I'll assume you never pirate anything (and this seems reasonable considering your belief system), and yet you still reaped a reduced price on the computer system, and perhaps other digital goods because of thousands of pirates who enabled the computers to be mass produced. Likewise, perhaps your business has broadband, and you in theory may be reaping a reduced price due to music pirates.
Also, regarding competition, it is true that most pirates do not sell their goods yet you still compete with them (in a way most pirates don't provide technical support, printed materials, and trained instructors) but even more so you are competing with other products that can't be pirated.
It has been natural since the industrial revolution for the producer to become more and more effecient at producing and reap greater and greater gains but the possibility of the consumer gaining more effecientcy seems to be frightening.
Also, I don't want to discuss the merits of the actual product you are selling yet it is great that you have enabled thousands of people around the world to experience it at reduced rates. However, that pales in comparison to the millions more people who could be given so much more with the reality that virtually free all-digital production provides.
A person who makes $10 in some third world country with just 1 computer could have access to entire libraries, all the hollywood movies, all the books in the world, all the good video games ever produced, all the instruction programs, all the application programs, all the songs, all the newspapers ever printed in all the languages, millions of maps, and many other resources. Would this be wrong? I don't know but I certainly wont dismiss it outright.
While it may seem pointless to dicuss these types of things now. I would be willing to bet that if I said that such a network existed (that allowed to be effeciently and legally share) that the lawyers for record companies would try to stop it. And, actually, according to the law maybe sharing is ILLEGAL because this is making an agreement or a contract negotiation to get the material back so that more then one person uses the product. Freely giving something would still be free but even an implied contract to get something in return could be shown illegal. Do I buy that? Not at all, and for the same reason I'm not willing to buy that all pirates are theives or that piracy is doing as much damage as people claim.
Nor am I willing to buy that copyright laws should be the law of the land. What is right and what is wrong? The USA says that if we go to war and an Iraqi carries out an action of mass destruction then that Iraqi will face war crimes? But the did the people who dropped the atom bomb face war crimes? Is the hypothetical Iraqi soilder who risk death and commits treason against his own country a hero or a villain? I say everyone must be accountable to themselves, and to what is right and wrong regardless of the consequences.
I'm certainly for free speech especially on public forums. Yet, I think I have expressed my ideas well enough that further discussion on my part is not warranted.
Thanks, and thanks for your reply Pete.
[This message has been edited by light (edited January 24, 2003).]
