The idea was that these people were basing their arguments entirely on that fact. And also, none of that stuff holds water. When you put something into a digital format it then exists in unlimited amounts and by the law of supply and demand has a material value of exactly $0.00. If the only incentive you can offer for people to pay for something is guilt (your reasoning) and legislation, you need to rethink your business model. If you sell bottled water in the desert and it begins to rain, you can't tell people they have to put their buckets back inside and buy your water.

Michael Thomas It seems like what you're saying is that if people are capable of pirating and don't feel that bad about it, that's kind of the fault of the business model? Well in some sense that's true but I don't think your distinction between physical and digital has much importance there. There are quite convincing studies that seem to show that most people in general will cheat in most situations if they can get away with it (look at the example of the canadian police strike in the 70s). So legislation really is quite important and isn't a weakness at all. Also, the main reason isn't just guilt (although you should feel pretty bad about destroying people's lives), the main reason is that if you don't pay for something it'll stop being made. Your analogy with the rain doesn't work. If stopping to pay for the bottled water made the rain stop as well, people should damn well pay attention.

There were times when there was no way of recording, 100s of years ago. Artists toured the lands to play their music live, and make money. As soon as people started recording and trying to sell their music, whilest taking away the human delivery (AKA 'I can't be bothered and have no time to play my music for you live, so you should just be satisfied listening to this tape I made'), it was destined to be copied.