What do you think of copyright?

Answer 1

Intellectual goods need to be produced just like physical goods. Some person must spend time and effort in creating them. If you take the intellectual good without the producer's consent you are reaping the benefits of someone else's efforts and are enriching yourself from that person's work. This is stealing. The fact that with intellectual property you are not deprieving the other person of the property itself does not make a difference here. You took what you couldn't produce on your own from the producer without his consent.

This being said, the actual copyright law leaves much to desire. It doesn't protect producers of intellectual property but companies who can afford the legal process. This is quite contrary to the intent stated above. But the fact that current copyright laws don't protect intellectual property as much as would be desirable doesn't make it right to steal movies by downloading them. The test you should do is always ask yourself: Do I enrich myself from someone else's work? If yes, you are wrong - if not, go ahead.