Whenever internet “piracy” is brought up, there is always someone who equates downloading an album or movie to going to JB Hifi and stealing it. This is incorrect for several reasons, so I though I’d respond to the most common arguments I hear supporting this view.

1. It’s the same as stealing the physical product from a store

Consider this scenario: A developer releases a new piece of software and burns a 10 copies to CD to sell. If someone downloads a copy of his software illegally (piracy), he still has 10 CDs; however, if someone broke into his house and stole the CDs, he wouldn’t have CDs anymore.
Depriving someone else of their property is fundamental to the concept of theft and this does not happen here.

2. It’s stealing because you’ve obtained something you didn’t pay for

The same developer wants to test a new version of his software, so he sends copies out to his friends for testing (for free), telling them not to distribute it further. If one of his friends then uploads a copy to RapidShare or creates a torrent on The Pirate Bay, he or she is still “committing piracy” even though he or she got it for free.
The reason this is still “piracy” is because copyright infringement (or “piracy”) is about distributing copies of a work without the copyright owner’s permission.

3. People who pirate don’t buy things

At least one study has shown that people who download music also buy more music than those who don’t download music. In addition, artists are actually making more money since the rise of online copyright infringement and piracy is certainly not killing the music industry.

Any physical good costs money to produce. A CD has to be pressed in a factory and the materials cost money. How much does it cost you to copy a CD to your MP3 player or iPod? It costs you nothing, it costs the record company nothing, it costs the artist nothing. A digital copy costs nothing (in and of itself) to produce. The current copyright laws are based around the idea that content content cannot be distributed without a physical form and is designed to protect people from being undercut by others with cheaper manufacturing costs or a wider audience.

I don’t think media should be free, but I think that the business models of the media companies need to change for the internet. iTunes and similar online stores are a step in the right direction, but they still are encumbered by the idea that a digital file has the same (or similar) intrinsic value as a physical item. In my opinion, a different model to “I pay for an object and recieve an object in return” will probably emerge. Perhaps a subscription-like model where you pay a fixed fee per month and can download a certain (or unlimited) number of tracks in exchange.

But this is speculation, and copyright infringement is still illegal and it’s still not respecting the wishes of those whose work it is you’re downloading.