Maybe to a deontologist. As far as I’m concerned, all that matters is whether it makes the world a better or worse place. It doesn’t even matter whether copyright infringement is ‘stealing’ or not (though, as others have pointed out, it basically is not). And it seems to me that in certain situations infringing copyright has lots of benefits with almost no downsides, so I could not accept calling it wrong.
I’m no moral theorist, but a consequentalist approach seems reasonable to me. That said, a given act of filesharing in violation of IP laws will generally have no significant consequences. Though, I suppose I think habitually violating the law because it is convenient to do so will have negative consequences for one’s charachter, but that’s going to vary case by case even if it is a real problem.
Maybe to a deontologist. As far as I’m concerned, all that matters is whether it makes the world a better or worse place. It doesn’t even matter whether copyright infringement is ‘stealing’ or not (though, as others have pointed out, it basically is not). And it seems to me that in certain situations infringing copyright has lots of benefits with almost no downsides, so I could not accept calling it wrong.
I’m no moral theorist, but a consequentalist approach seems reasonable to me. That said, a given act of filesharing in violation of IP laws will generally have no significant consequences. Though, I suppose I think habitually violating the law because it is convenient to do so will have negative consequences for one’s charachter, but that’s going to vary case by case even if it is a real problem.