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US CD Sales Increase in 2004
Lindsay Lohan writes "BBC is reporting that CD sales rose by 2.3% in the U.S. in the year 2004 despite the growing popularity of legal digital music downloads through services such as iTunes. On the other hand, a BBC report from last July noted that pirated CD sales have hit a record high. Sounds like the RIAA should be going after the real pirates, not little Susie or Grandma."
Person A owns a sandwich. Person B does not. The sandwich has a "usefulness value" of 1.
The following is a description of a theft, an action conducted by a thief:
B takes A's sandwich and eats it.
Net change for A: -1.
Net change for B: +1.
B is a thief.
The following is NOT a description of a theft, and the person doing it is NOT a thief:
Someone has a matter duplicator, which can perfectly duplicate any object with very little (as in neglectable) effort and energy. B uses this matter duplicator to copy A's sandwich. Now they both have a sandwich.
Net change for A: 0.
Net change for B: 1.
Whoah! Our overall usefulness rating is up! And this is what RIAA/MPAA/pro intellectual property people calls piracy/theft? This is hardly anything like the first act - and surely far from the act of capturing someone's ship and cargo.
For real life objects, we don't have "duplicators" - for digital data we do!