You know (bear with me on this), one thing that really annoys me on the internet is when someone spends considerable time and effort putting together a humorous photoshop/blog post/top 10, and the next day I see it, completely uncredited in a national newspaper. Some journalist has stolen it...just because it's on the internet...and stuff on the internet is like, free, right?
Much as I hate to admit it, I think on this occasion Michael Lyton has a point (dammit, I don't like what he says but I have to defend his right to say it). In the real world, no one would seriously contemplate reprinting the contents of a book they borrowed from the library and passing it off as their own, and no one would seriously contemplate walking into their local record store and walking out with anything that caught their eye just because they 'wouldn't have bought it anyway if they'd had to pay full price'.
Thing is, I also buy into the argument that illegal copying actually promotes music sales. Hell, I copied enough albums from my friends when I was a kid to know that I still bought a lot of albums. But don't try to con me that what I wasn't doing wasn't stealing (i.e. taking without permission). It's stealing when a journalist tries to pass off my website as his own work, it's stealing when I copy an album that I never wanted to listen to but my friend says I might quite like, and it's stealing when I download the latest star trek movie because I can't be bothered to pay for it at the cinema and after all, it's bound to be shown on free television at some point anyway.
So let's reboot this discussion. All illegal downloading is theft. Full stop. The more interesting question, is it theft like stealing a pen from work, or is it theft like stealing a car. And if it's theft like stealing a pen, then why is so much more like stealing a car when somebody does it to me.
