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But that really have nothing to do with the distinction between material an immaterial property. The distinction lies in the moral judgment of the consequences,
by CuriousSkeptic 11y ago
But that really have nothing to do with the distinction between material an immaterial property. The distinction lies in the moral judgment of the consequences, and fairness, of those actions.
- humanrebar 11y agoNo, it has everything to do with material and immaterial property. Because of the laws of conservation of mass, you cannot get new things for nothing. You can take things, and you can build new things. You can't out-and-out Star Trek style replicate things, at least not yet. Information, because it isn't matter, can be copied very easily. It's actually quite tricky to make sure that only one person has a piece of information. This is why bitcoin and block chains are technically interesting. All of this impacts the consequences and morality of the two kinds of "stealing". Stealing matter necessarily harms someone. They just lost something. Even if things can be easily replaced, the identity of matter is important. I could go out and buy another birthday card just like the one on my desk, but I'll never be able to truly replace it because my grandpa gave it to me just before he died. On the other hand, the identity of an instance of data generally isn't important. If I lose a video of my grandpa and then acquire a different copy, it isn't that important.