If the cash stolen is in an FDIC account, then yes, it does.

Ah, there we go.

I see your point; let's try that again:

"Putting it that way kinda makes them sound less like romantic swashbucklers and more like people who aid people who allow other people to watch movies and listen to music for free instead of paying for it as the artists and their producers and publishers and investors intended, doesn't it?"

Nah, my original one was funnier. I especially like how it inspires people to justify obtaining movies, music and games without paying for them. :-)

I was actually going for the +1 Funny. How the heck did I get modded Insightful? :-(

According to the Magic Leap website, their Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal technology permits generating images indistinguishable from real objects.

...provided the real objects are themselves images. Look! That simulated JPEG looks exactly like a real JPEG!

Have I ever downloaded something that I didn't have rights to - yes, but not enough for anybody to care.

You can't claim anything about how much a hypothetical individual would or would not care.

The equivalent of a kid sneaking into a movie theater to watch a movie once or twice.

Unless you're 12 years old or under, you don't get to apply that standard to yourself. If you're an adult and you sneak into a movie theater to watch a film -- even if there were empty seats -- that's wrong. If you intentionally download something that you don't have the rights to, that's wrong too.

It's okay; we're human, we all do things from time to time that we know we're not supposed to, but let's not fool ourselves when we do. You can make all sorts of rationalizations to make yourself feel better about illegal downloading, and other people who do it will no doubt support you, but it's still wrong. If you don't understand that, I really can't say anything more to convince you, except that maybe you should discuss the matter with your parents or (if you're religious) your minister or equivalent, and hear what they have to say about it.

I care because I know people who make their entire living doing music or writing.

In order to sell what they produce, artists (meaning musicians, authors, etc.) make deals with publishers who in turn can market their work to distributors far and wide. Those publishers sign contracts based on how marketable the artist is, or how marketable think the artist will be. Marketability boils down to how much money the artist will bring to the publisher, because after all this is a business arrangement. The more sales by distributors (like amazon.com), the more the publisher makes, and the more successful the artist is. The more pirated downloads, the less the publisher makes -- which not only means that the artist makes less, but the publisher might not care to sign with the artist in the future. So the artist goes broke, and can't make their art anymore, because they need to do other things to put food on the table and pay rent.

If you like an artist, you support their work by paying for it exactly as they intended. If you think the artist should have a different way of making a living, you can suggest that to the artist.

I provide most of my writing and artwork online under Creative Commons Attributional license, and my Open Source libraries under the Artistic License, so I'm very sympathetic to the notion of sharing -- but only when the artist themselves elects to do so. That's not the case with The Pirate Bay and its users, and what they do doesn't pass the smell test with me.

There are tons of artists out there who release music and books and games and short films on public sites, with licenses that allow unlimited copying and sharing. If that's the model you believe in, then please frequent those artists, and throw a little cash their way -- some of them are friends of mine; they could use it! As for the rest of the artists and their producers and their distributors: if you don't like paying what they ask, then don't consume their product. It's really very simple.

Putting it that way kinda makes them sound less like romantic swashbucklers and more like thieves, doesn't it?

Without the double helix, it would be to easy to have errors.

Can you please elaborate on that? It sounds cool... is there something specific to the shape of the double helix that makes storage or transcription less error-prone?

for illegal file sharing. Because plausible.

I agree!

I read your entire post in Comic Book Guy's voice.

Citation needed.

Yep, CIPA is extremely dangerous. You have to self-monitor at all times:

CIP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

CIPA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...