Replies

Okay. Now let's get down to brass tacks.

I have been busy reading your posts in this thread, and three things strike me:

1) To download or otherwise capture copyrighted material, even if done for personal use, is how you define theft. (Before you tell me you are not including personal use, may I remind you you have not made that distinction, and you would have done so if that was indeed your intent.)

2) You have essentially proclaimed it makes no difference what arguments can be made for file sharing (for the purpose of the topic at hand); to you they are not relevant and you will not listen to them.

3) You have at least once called at least one other poster in this thread an outright thief.

In light of this, it is terribly easy to come up with responses, replete with comments derogatory. However, I decided to stick with the rather accurate assessment of you being a fool.

I could have said you are an immature retard, but that would be considered an insult to both pre-adolescent children and those with mental and/or physical challenges.

No, you are just incredibly close-minded on a mundane subject, with a mindset on par with hopelessly spoiled and improperly disciplined pre-adolescent children.

Or, to paraphrase the words of Samuel Clemens, better known to the world as Mark Twain: "It is better for one to think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Unauthorized downloading of copyrighted music is unlawful EVEN FOR YOUR PERSONAL USE. That's the law. That's what I've been saying on that issue. I'm having trouble understanding what all the sturm und drang is about when it comes to something so obvious. I'm stating a hard fact. It's as if we're standing in a downpour, and I say it's raining, and people get bent out of shape and insist that it's not.

One of the ways they do go nuts is to fire off things to me that say, What if the sender gives me permission!? As if they've nailed me or something. And I keep explaining, very slowly, that if you have PERMISSION, well, then, it's not UN-authorized, is it?

The rights or wrongs of the law and the system and how it will evolve and how it must be changed and how the BIG CORPORATIONS are cheating everybody and all the rest of it is fine fodder for ancillary discussions, but it all misses the first and second point.

The first point is stated above. The second point is: If you take it, you're stealing. It's stealing. It...is... stealing. That's the legal and moral and biblical definition of stealing: Willfully taking something that is not yours.

I've come to the point that many here are simply not going to see it that way, and I'm not going to change them. If you've been reading everything I've said on this, as you say, you must have decided to ignore the several posts where I said to someone in opposition, Let's agree to disagree, and wish each other Merry Christmas. Many of those people on the other side, to their credit, have responded in kind. Perhaps you might consider the same.

But probably not after I comment on your string of jejeune insults. They're not funny. They're old. The one about the mental and physical challenges can be heard on third-rate shock jock radio...or the third grade. Take it from a professional: If you were half as funny as you think you are, you'd be twice as funny as your friends wish you were.

But seriously, take my holiday wishes--please.