How is this in any way a moral issue? Do people even know what “morals” are anymore? Since when is “doing something I don’t want you to do for my own selfish reasons” a moral violation?

Here’s a fundamental flaw in copyright discussions. You can’t discuss morals without discussing intent. Intent is core to moral action. We all instinctively know this. That’s why burning a house down intentionally is considered arson and doing it accidentally is, at most, negligence, with significantly different potential punishments.

The problem is that we’ve forgotten about intent. I’m not talking about intent to “steal” movies via copyright infringement. I’m talking about the intent of copyright in the first place. Why does copyright exist at all?

First of all, it’s not a “natural right.” There is no natural right to own what you create, in fact the entire concept of property implies the opposite. If I create a chair, then sell you the chair, I no longer own that chair. It’s yours, and you can do whatever you want with it.

Likewise, if I tell a joke, and you tell your friends that joke too, no natural right has been violated, even if I thought up the joke. Ideas are inherently meant to be shared; this is also known as “education” or “communication.” The whole purpose of communication is transferring ideas to other people, otherwise it would have no function.

That’s what gets me about the copyright discussion. We’ve created laws around copyright protections…that’s not really up for debate. But what is the point of those laws?

Think of other laws. We have laws against corporate fraud. Why? To protect the public from abuse. We have laws against jaywalking. Why? To prevent people from getting hit by cars. There’s a purpose and intent behind laws, even if sometimes that purpose is to make people richer or if the law doesn’t actually accomplish its purpose.

So what’s the purpose of copyright? It depends on your country, of course, but in the U.S. we have it in pretty plain language; “to promote the Progress of Science and the Useful Arts…”

So if the morals behind a law are in the intent, not the effect, how is copyright infringement immoral? Illegal, sure, but immoral? Are pirates really causing less art to be created? If you believe they are, and many people do, can you prove it?

I ask this because all the evidence I see is the opposite. Creators create even without monetary incentive and plenty of “copyright” industries exist with little to no copyright protections. In fact, the main beneficiaries I see from copyright are distributers/publishers, who don’t create anything, and lawyers, who don’t create anything. What exactly are artists gaining?

So if the intent of copyright is to encourage the creation of intellectual works, and copyright law is at best not affecting the creation of intellectual works, and at worst actively harming those efforts, what moral imperative is there to follow copyright law? If someone made a law that I need to tip my hat to a statue of Walt Disney, and I refuse to do so, have I committed a moral crime, or just broken a stupid rule?

There’s nothing immoral about using a VPN to access information, or to pirate, or any other copying. It’s illegal, sure, but I have absolutely no moral imperative to obey your imaginary rights to my copy of something you created. It doesn’t make sense in practice, similar to how, after looking for traffic on an empty street, most people will cross the street outside of a crosswalk. Have they broken the law? Sure. Have they done something morally wrong? Only the most bizarre rule-mongers or fanatics would say so.

That’s what I see when people go on and on about piracy and VPNs. A bunch of adults complaining about jaywalkers and calling it trespassing on government property and reckless endangerment.

Sorry if I roll my eyes and keep walking.