I would think that people view car theft as more morally consequential than copyright infringement because of its tangible nature. If someone takes a car, someo

I would think that people view car theft as more morally consequential than copyright infringement because of its tangible nature. If someone takes a car, someone else is now missing a car. However, if someone were to illegally download a song, nothing irreplaceable is taken (i.e. the artist isn't deprived of the music they have created). I would also think that the relative value of the items makes a difference ethically. Assuming a song has a value on the market of $1 and a car has a going price of $10,000, the car is four orders of magnitude more expensive. Imagine if only one person could own a song at a time, and that song was valued the same as a car. I don't think you would see the rates of copyright infringement that you see today. For this same reason, I disagree that if car theft became consequence-free, many people would do it. The moral consequence is derived from the value of the object you are depriving someone of; a car is far more valuable than a song. Additionally, there's the ethical consequence of depriving someone of transportation, while taking a song does not really have any effects on a person's quality of life.