[citation][nom]edogawa[/nom]Well, your statement made a lot of sense in a way, but this isn't a philosophical debate of any kind.There is no debate if they are or not stealing, they are in one way or another, and that has to stop. Pirates have, people who download something without paying for it, have no legal "RIGHT" to use or view that content. The illegal piracy of content, if it hurts sale or not is irrelevant too, even if 10% of pirates were forced to buy something, that is profit gain. In a sense, it is a moral issue too, but you have to be really cheap to pirate content, most things are not that expensive.[/citation]
This IS a philosophical debate about what constitutes stealing. That is where you misunderstand. There are a million ways to complicate this issue and show it is full of nuance. Let's start with things that used to not be considered stealing but could be:
A song is playing on the radio. You have not paid to listen to it. Society has allowed you to hear it for free because it has negotiated something out.
A microscope discovers that when meat is left out, flies deposit eggs on it. You "know" that information for free, despite careers spent on developing those systems that led you to wash your hands and cook your meat. The discovery was published in a peer-reviewed journal which you never paid for. You have stolen that knowledge.
Your education was paid for by neither yourself or your parents, but a small percentage of everyone's.
You own almost nothing in your mind. It was created by a thousand generations of millions of hard workers standing on top of hard workers, sweating thinkers. Just about everything you have was given for free.
The planet grew thousands of forests on top of thousands of forests, only to have your burn this coagulation of millions of years in order to get to the gym and work out.
The sun burns for free.
It is pure arrogance to feel as if some product was so full of toil and accomplishment that they can deny other people their liberty.
This is just one angle of attack, just one perspective that causes the category of "stealing" to become destabilized. This says nothing of cultures by which respect is gained by giving the most away. This does not bring in the eloquent argument ad absurdum of illegal primes. I simply say that a "legal right to use" is not as concrete as you appear to think. It is nothing less than an expression of power that understands a contract is only such as its ability to enforce it.
This is merely an argument about power. Verizon is attempting to figure out how to flex that power. Illegality, stealing, piracy, etc. all whirl and dance as blurred, unlocalized spectres in a global conflict of ideas that we use to define concepts like freedom, expression, entertainment, work, value, money, fairness, and humanity.