>If new technology made rape much harder to prevent and prosecute, would we suggest women readjust their sexual expectations? No, which is why I wrote: >The f

>If new technology made rape much harder to prevent and prosecute, would we suggest women readjust their sexual expectations? No, which is why I wrote: >The further reality is that people are not motivated by the moral argument that consumer-facing copyright law is an intrinsic good that must be universally respected. and discussed what happens when this collides with the impossibility of enforcement. In the case of rape, there would still be a widespread communal response to ostracize rapists, develop counter-technologies, etc., because normal people will not just sit idly by and accept the fact that they can't do anything about rapists. Somehow they just don't find the concept of lost sales as noble. Copyright infringement is not the same as theft because theft forcibly removes a thing. Copyright protects against whole and independent copies that have no bearing on the physical item (whether a real, bound book or a string of digits stored on a disc). This is why people are charge with "copyright infringement" instead of "burglary" when they violate copyright law. You're right that I didn't address each point independently and consistently. I didn't believe this is necessary; my post wasn't about the moral implications of copyright adherence or copyright violation or why some people believe it's theft, but about the practicalities and futility of Big Media's "fight against piracy". I think it's a legitimate mashup. The only moral argument I referenced was simply that people do not believe copyright should prevent them from downloading content, and that was only a sentence or so.