Dan Bricklin writes a game-changing note discussing why online piracy isn’t shoplifting. Summary: online piracy is like watching and listening to the open air concerts at Kenwood from outside the enclosure. There’s a potential loss of income (in that you might have bought a ticket or might have paid Sky for the service) but no direct harm to the venue. Shoplifting results in direct financial harm to someone, most likely the store which has already paid for the CD. At the very least, someone has paid for the CD to be produced. So in one case there’s direct harm, in the other there isn’t.
