There is a fundamental difference: copying, in itself, renders no such harm as normal property infractions. Consider the underlying necessary facts. If you take a material object from me, you have deprived me. If you copy that object, you have done no such harm. The 'harm' of copying/infringement depends solely on the laws. If we didn't have the laws there wouldn't be the harm.
People know this unconsciously. A few million years of evolution have made us want to communicate. People copy because of the natural tendency to do something that is good for all of us.
My point was that, in response to the GP, plenty of folk have 'inherent difficulty' respecting other peoples' property in many situations outwith the copying/piracy issue. Which is to say, the lowest common denominator is simply 'can I easily get away with this?' Piracy, regardless of anything else, is incredibly easy to get away with.
But as far as the broader issue of copyright violation, to my mind it's really no different from any other type of property violation. Property is stuff we control and use to make a living, if we lose control chances are we can't make a living - which is why the law enforces your property rights. Whether it's stealing a possession, or renting something then straying from the terms of use, or copying a film, it's all the same. Property isn't the object itself, its your right of disposal (which sometimes might mean consuming, which physical deprivation would make impossible, or sometimes might mean distributing, which copying would make impossible, or sometimes mean privacy, which trespassing would make impossible, etc.)
> if we lose control chances are we can't make a living - which is why the law enforces your property rights
That is a circular justification. People can only make a living from IP because of the law, so one cannot then justify the existence of the law because it helps people make a living.
IP law, by definition, invents an artificial obstruction of other people's rights to copy. There must be a good reason for that.
Consider if you made a living selling tea, but then a personal tea-making gadget is invented. Are you then justified in stopping people walking home with their newly bought tea-makers and removing them -- because they are impeding you in earning a living? No. You just have to make a living in a different way. People's general fundamental freedom trumps your right to particular commercial advantage.
Because IP is so long-standing we have become accustomed to expect it, to assume it as a fundamental right. This is mistaken. It is provisional and must answer to real fundamental rights.
There is a rational case for IP: that it is pragmatic. It does harm by restricting people's freedom to communicate, but overall it increases production and so serves the public's interest -- that is the proposition at least. This is the only argument for IP. But given the changes in technological circumstance it must be radically reassessed, probably best replaced.
It's only a circular argument if you take property as an arbitrary axiom that can't be investigated further.
People need to use their mind to survive --> people must be able to reap the benefits of their mind/creativity to survive --> people must control the produce of their work/creativity to survive --> people should have property rights protected by the government
Property, including IP, is just a natural extension of freedom and living, it's about as fundamental as it gets. Of course it's hard to protect IP, but that's one of the benefits of having a highly civilized nation. They have the right to benefit from their creativity, and you're obliged to respect that. The law allows them to make a living, yes, just like the law allows most of us to make a living without people ripping us off or stealing, thank goodness. It makes perfect sense to have these laws.
The point of IP is that it's the produce of someone's mind, as direct a product as you can get. If you copy it without permission you know without doubt that you're undermining somebody's ability to benefit from their creativity, ultimately undermining their livelihood. That basically makes you a hypocrite.
The pragmatic argument (that without copyright/patents, innovation and investment would dry up) is secondary.
> people must be able to reap the benefits of their mind/creativity to survive --> people must control the produce of their work/creativity to survive
There is the flaw: the second does not follow from the first. There is no necessary requirement that produce -- in this context copies -- be controlled.
Consider the basic logic/physics of abstract goods. There is no necessary dependence of production on subsequent copies. In fact it is the opposite: the copies depend on production. It is perfectly conceivable that things be produced -- and the producers paid for that -- without any restriction of copies.
And this is clear in practice. Take an architect for example. They are commissioned and then design a building: they have done intellectual work and been paid for it, and so 'reaped the benefits' of their creativity to survive. Yet there has been no need for restriction on copies of their designs.
> The point of IP is that it's the produce of someone's mind, . . . If you copy it without permission . . . you're undermining somebody's ability to benefit from their creativity
But as explained above, this is not essential: it is only true for a particular, contingent, commercial arrangement.
You see that production is good, and also that copies are good too. What I ask is that you see that there is no essential need that one should restrict the other. And since both do us good, surely we would want to do both. What we want
is a system that supports people to produce and allows freedom of copying.
This is why the pragmatic argument is the only plausible one. If we don't need, for practical reasons, to restrict copies, why would we? How can it be moral? What good does it do us? The idea that people have some intrinsic right to interfere with others, based merely on creatorship, is nonsensical and utterly self-destructive.
Just compare the limit cases (and since it is already established there is no necessary dependence of production on copies, we can look just at the copying aspect). Either: with free copying/sharing, we all greatly magnify our access to good stuff, at no cost to anyone. In a group of 100, if each of us makes some music, everyone has 100 pieces of music to listen to. Or: with absolutist IP, we all keep our own stuff (our own 'property') to ourselves, and so we all have much less stuff available to us. If each of us makes some music, everyone has only one piece of music to listen to. -- And what could be the justification there? that we 'know without doubt' we are doing the right thing? -- Which community to join is an easy choice.
It is not possible to say a priori what particular structures of organisation or commerce are efficient. But it is possible to say the moral essentials mean we should prefer free-sharing rather than copy-restricting.
People know this unconsciously. A few million years of evolution have made us want to communicate. People copy because of the natural tendency to do something that is good for all of us.