Very thoughtful and well-reasoned post, thanks. A few points:
1) You point to the argument that "people who download illegally typically wouldn't have bought whatever it is they downloaded". This, on an individual basis, was one of the main rallying cries in the heyday of Napster, "well, I wouldn't have bought it anyway" (how convenient that it fell in that window between, "I'm not at all interested" and "I want it enough to pay"). The problem is, looking at it from a statistical level, if it was available to illegally download, 100 Napster-afficianados would download it, but if, on the other hand, it wasn't available to illegally download, 95 Napster-afficianados would have gone off to find something else to plunder and done without the album in question, while the remaining 5 actually would have bought the album (whether it's 2 or 5 or 10 or 20 is debatable, but isn't really important at the moment), despite their protestations to the contrary. Aside from all 100 of those folks committing an immoral/unethical/illegal act (take your pick) in the former case, the availability of the "free" illegal download has cost the company 5 (or 2 or 10) actual real sales. Multiplied by millions, it adds up.
2) Agreed, the word "theft" is not a great fit in the traditional sense. But works quite well in the sense of "taking something which is not yours against the wishes of the person who owns it". The word "piracy" is also a poor choice (not only are the bad folks not taking over physical ships on the high seas, but it gives them a whole enticing lore to draw from in trying to paint themselves as underdogs, somehow fighting against "the man"). The problem is, if you say "copyright infringement", the vast majority of people will either look confused, or wave it off as "not a real crime". And, again, it very much is theft in the sense of taking something that doesn't belong to you without permission.
3) Re "I think everyone at this point knows that downloading illegal copies is wrong". Do they? Teddy has spent many pages arguing strenuously that it isn't wrong. I'm not sure I believe his stance (is he upholding something he truly believes, or trying to assuage his guilt?). But it's entirely possible than there are many other folks out there who truly do not feel that they are engaging in an immoral/unethical/illegal act when they download "free stuff". Calling it theft, in that case, may get their attention.
As an aside, one of the other common arguments put forth in the heyday of Napster was that these folks considered themselves underdogs, fighting "the man". It always sounded to me a lot like that tipping point where "protest" turns into "looting": "Hey! Fight the power! Fight the man! CD prices are too high! I'm so enraged I'm gonna throw a rock through a store window! Oh, and while I'm at it, I could use a free microwave oven, and some free Britney Spears CD's." Thus, I've always thought of such people as looters. "Protesting" while availing themselves of the music produced by the companies they were "fighting" against - a real protester would loudly and publicly refuse to buy or listen to any music from the big bad Music Industry.
I love this response. Thank you as well.
1) Certainly the existence of illegal file-sharing removes some number of sales on a macro level. On a micro level, looking at individual people, I don't think it can be said that it does. So when someone says, ThePirateBay costs legitimate stores X sales per million downloads, I agree. When someone says, someone who illegally downloads cost a legitimate store one sale, I disagree. I actually think this is the crux of the problem. What policy, that would dissuade a million downloads from ThePirateBay, be worth it to save X legitimate sales? The cost of the policy, (implementation, etc), in theory should be less than the value of those sales, right?
2) If we are arguing semantics, which this debate is, I take issue with your definition of taking something that doesn't belong to you without permission. First, as I said earlier, I think the semantics are important as they frame the problem, and thus guide the solution. Second, until I hear something better, I prefer to call it "illegal downloading." I think that is the most honest thing to call it. I agree that "copyright infringement" is too complex of a phrase that encompasses a whole lot more than the illegal downloads, and that most people don't understand. Finally, it's not "taking." It's copying. I think it's important we call the act what it actually is. So illegal downloading is copying without permission a file that doesn't belong to you.
3) Maybe that's right. As I said in (1) above, the issue is how do we convert as many as possible of these folks over the legal ways at a cost that is proportional the benefit. You have to recognize, you won't be able to convert 100% of these folks. Some Neo-Matrix-Wannabes will continue to download stuff illegally. Likewise, some are easy to convert over by just providing with an product that is easier - like Spotify. There is no doubt that Spotify is way easier than torrenting.
4) Responding to your final point, I think there is value to this grey/black market on the internet. Some policies are objectively unfair, and sometimes it takes illegal action to point this out and break it up. Napster certainly aided in exposing and breaking down the CD price collusion problem. That was also illegal by the way. Some countries censor content and thus their citizens don't have access to music with political messages or affiliations (China, formally Cuba, etc). Some international treaties consider this a violation of human rights. Some are just patently anti-consumer behavior, like region blocking or releasing only neutered versions (ahem, star wars). So while I agree that some kid sitting on his $3000 Alienware laptop shouldn't whine about having to pay for Call of Duty, there is some value in having these networks.
It's funny, because the "old media" companies (Comcast, Sony, Viacom, etc) are the ones that sort of caused all of this mess, and they're the ones that tried to litigate their way out of it. But it's the "new media" companies (Netflix, Spotify, Apple, etc) that have done more to stop piracy than any of the old media's litigation or lobbying.
These are the winning arguments:
- Why bother torrenting when you can Netflix and chill?
- Why bother with sketchy .rar downloads when Spotify gives you access to nearly all music?
- Are you really going to explain to your mother how to use PopcornTime?
- Your girlfriend wants to watch The Bachelor now, and isn't going to wait for you to find someone seeding S06E08. Get Hulu.
Those are the arguments that work. Note that none of them categorize illegal downloading as theft. Instead they categorize it as competition, and they ask, how many people are willing to pay $X per month for the convenience of it, for not having to struggle? They find a middle ground to find the X value, where they get sufficient numbers of people paying, and that is one of the ways to find the cost I talked about above in (1) above.