This whole response is a strawman. I never claimed the author should not be upset at copyright infringement. I never claimed that giving away copies is fine. I

This whole response is a strawman. I never claimed the author should not be upset at copyright infringement. I never claimed that giving away copies is fine. I merely claimed that they may be different than theft. The ethics of the situation was never in the realm of discussion. The russian roulette analogy you make is doubly vile, and reeks of the worst type of intellectual dishonesty. First is based on the assumption I shot down above. Second, it has an emotional load and severe connotations which are not appropriate. (seriously, suicide games are in no way emotionally close in content to a song download, no matter how you spin it). Finally: a declaration of safe vs (presumably) not safe is a declaration of degree (of risk in this case), my declaration of theft vs not theft is not of degree, it is a declaration of category. Your analogy does not hold.