While you do disclaim that no stealing occurs when pirating at the start of your post, you do not internalize what that means throughout the rest of your comment. This is evident throughout the rest of your comment through your continued choice of using the word "take". No "taking" occurs by making a copy of a file.
Stealing is bad for a specific reason: it's a zero sum game. If you are to benefit from stealing somebody else has to lose something. Stealing is parasitism (benefiting while harming someone else) on other people / society. But if I could magically create a copy of something you own (e.g. your TV), and we both keep our own copy, there is nothing morally wrong with that, even if there are arbitrary laws that make it illegal.
Piracy is closer to the second case. Me making a copy of a file does not limit others from using that file. It is not a zero sum game. It's commensalism (benefiting without harming or benefiting anyone else), not parasitism. Morally it is at worst neutral.
Not to mention that copyright hasn't been a thing for the wast majority of human history and we did just fine. Standing up to arbitrary, unjust laws is a moral good.
Wouldn’t cloning a TV deprive the manufacturer (and all associated parties) of revenue?
Doesn’t copying a digital work without consent deprive the creator (and all associated parties) of revenue?
Isn’t deliberately depriving a person or persons of remuneration for their work stealing?
The laws against making digital copies of a work without the consent of the rights holder are not arbitrary. They’re in place to ensure those who invested time and money into creating something can earn money from the thing they create.
>Wouldn’t cloning a TV deprive the manufacturer (and all associated parties) of revenue?
>Doesn’t copying a digital work without consent deprive the creator (and all associated parties) of revenue?
Depriving of revenue is not stealing, as I outlined in my previous post. The author still has access to their work and the ability to sell it if there is sufficient demand. If something had been stolen neither of those are the case. If "depriving of revenue" constituted stealing I could ask you for $100, you could refuse, and that would be theft because you "deprive me of revenue". This would be ridiculous for obvious reasons.
>Isn’t deliberately depriving a person or persons of remuneration for their work stealing?
No, as I outlined clearly in my previous comment.
>The laws against making digital copies of a work without the consent of the rights holder are not arbitrary. They’re in place to ensure those who invested time and money into creating something can earn money from the thing they create.
You might have had a case here if copyright ended with the death of the author and was limited to a reasonable time frame within the lifespan of an author, but this has not been the case for a long time. Copyright in the US is up to 70 years after the authors death. That is an arbitrary and unjust law that only benefits mega corps. Hence it is morally right to stand against the law through civil disobedience.
I just can’t accept that depriving someone of revenue for hard work (toil, stress, exhaustion, etc.) isn’t stealing.
The act of people stealing the work is a clear demonstration of sufficient demand, no? If the price is too high or supply too low, that doesn’t excuse theft. It never has.
Wage theft is stealing. If I tell you I’ll paint your house for $100 and then paint your house and you don’t pay me, that’s theft, which is stealing.
Piracy is equivalent to wage theft, which is stealing. A bunch of people did a bunch of work and ask that people pay for the output of their labor. Those who decide to take that output without paying are stealing. They are thieves.
The length of copyright laws is a separate matter. Yeah, they protect major artists and labels with millions, but they also protect small artists who live off their work.
If you take a digital copy of something for free that you should have paid for, you are not a pirate and you are not Robin Hood, you are a thief. The same as someone who walks into a store and steals or snatches a purse off a park bench.
I’ve been seeing people deflect morality over stealing digital copies for most of my life and it’s always amazed me how it’s the only act of thievery that people openly discuss and brag about.
Somehow stealing copies of art is okay, but stealing cars is not.
> I’ve been seeing people deflect morality over stealing digital copies for most of my life and it’s always amazed me how it’s the only act of thievery that people openly discuss and brag about.
Maybe you should try considering why this is so. Perhaps it's not actually thievery?
Stealing is bad for a specific reason: it's a zero sum game. If you are to benefit from stealing somebody else has to lose something. Stealing is parasitism (benefiting while harming someone else) on other people / society. But if I could magically create a copy of something you own (e.g. your TV), and we both keep our own copy, there is nothing morally wrong with that, even if there are arbitrary laws that make it illegal.
Piracy is closer to the second case. Me making a copy of a file does not limit others from using that file. It is not a zero sum game. It's commensalism (benefiting without harming or benefiting anyone else), not parasitism. Morally it is at worst neutral.
Not to mention that copyright hasn't been a thing for the wast majority of human history and we did just fine. Standing up to arbitrary, unjust laws is a moral good.