Involuntary, inhumane incarceration threatens actual thieves. Those that collate stealing and piracy are wrong; it's just a cheap rhetorical point they use beca

Involuntary, inhumane incarceration threatens actual thieves. Those that collate stealing and piracy are wrong; it's just a cheap rhetorical point they use because it takes too many words to dispute. Moral values should come into play only at a meta-level, because we can only ever talk about economic models rather than the reality that economics doesn't actually describe. Morals do function as a modifying factor in the model of the overall willingness of people to donate to artists for recorded music. BitTorrent pirates are never ordered to jail, except maybe the Pirate bay guys, but I don't think anyone expects them to actually serve any time.