Ars OpenForum

TechGeek":26kusr1n said:

T By your own definitions then the MPAA and RIAA are evil. So is taking something from someone who is evil, evil in and of itself? What if that item was misappropriated to begin with?

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Uh, yes, actually, evil is evil regardless of whether you are targeting evil people or not.

There were probably plenty of absolutely horrible Jews who died in concentration camps. Does that mean that the concentration camps were justified? No.

The Soviets and the Nazis fought and killed TONS of each other. The Japanese slaughtered tons of people in China.

None of this makes any of it good.

In any case, you are not stealing from the MPAA and the RIAA. The MPAA and RIAA are NOT media companies; they are advocacy groups. Most advocacy groups are in fact evil, ranging from the MPAA to the people who advocate for disabled children, because they push their own agendas at undue cost to others - they care about getting what they want, and screw everyone else. Just about the only good advocacy group is the ACLU, and even THEN they screw up at some frequency by failing to consider conflicting rights or by buying into paranoia or other unreasonable arguments.

Who you are stealing from is the actual movie studios who support the MPAA. These are the people who actually make the money, and they DO compete with each other - the idea that the MPAA is a monopoly is a bit silly if you ever look at all the competing movies that happen. It is arguably an oligarchical group which excludes others to some extent - the ratings board, for instance, is probably harsher on independent films than MPAA ones - but the truth is that the ratings board isn't actually the entity which causes the problems, the problem is caused by Wal Mart and the various theater operators who force everyone to get a movie rated between G and R to show it or sell it.

Thus who you are actually harming is not the MPAA but the various constituent members of the MPAA, who are not, in fact, unduly evil. Sure they're not happy fun entities - they certainly do some bad things - but that does not justify stealing from them, nor hurting them. No one is absolutely good, so any argument based on the fact that its okay to do evil things to people who do evil things ends with your head on a stick.