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Doesn't one of the ten commandments have something to do with taking (downloading) something that doesn't belong to you (or to which you have not bought the rights)? Just a question. I'd be interested in getting a little discussion going here. :-)

Copyright infringement is not the same as theft. Imagine that your car could be digitally copied. I could walk up to your car with my car copying device and make myself a car just like yours. You would still have your car and I would still have mine.

If I stole your car, you would no longer have it.

Secondly, there are many non-infringing uses for filesharing software. In the Betamax case
http://www.hrrc.org/history/betamax/inside_betamax.asp
the courts ruled that a technology that has significant non-infringing uses cannot be ruled as infringing.

Filesharing software can be non-infringing for several reasons. here are two:

1) Copyright is based on local law. What is infringing in one location may not be infringing in another. For example, Canada has made filesharing legal
http://techcentralstation.com/081803C.html
by adding a tax to all CDRs and other material that would be used to copy the material. Other countries simply do not recognize the copyright.

2) A work could be public domain or the copyright holder could have granted copying rights to others. Some works are governed by the The Free Music Philosophy
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp.html
one of the GNU Free licenses
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
or somthing else.

I follow your argument, but the common thread running through each of your exceptions is that the one who produces the material has agreed (or must at least live with because of their country) the idea that their product is going to be copied. However, when a producer (of music or any intellectual property) invokes the US copyright system, they are declaring that their product is not intended to be copied. If a person turns down their right to copyright their software, or if something moves into the public domain, then their intent is also clear, and it can be lawfully shared.
For that reason, copying of software is called "piracy" (using unlawful means to acquire someone else's property). When recording labels and software companies spend millions (or billions?) trying to protect their products and make them unable to be copied, I think their intent is clear: they do not want them to be copied.
The car analogy is a bad one because it neglects the concept of copyright law. The government has said that piece of work is the intellectual property of the copyright holder and is protected against the citizens (of the US--no "Canada red herrings" here). At this point, why would/should a Christian disobey his government?
Understand my point: file sharing is stealing, not from the person with whom you "share" the files, but from the person who copyrighted the material. They are having revenue that rightfully belongs to them stolen by "sharers."
When I download something for free that I should have paid $16.99 or $199 for at a store, then I have stolen that money.
Re-labelling theft "sharing" may salve people's conscience (if they haven't seared it already), but it doesn't change the reality of what is going on.

Obviously, copyright infringement is illegal in the US and most other countries (179 countries are WIPO members), but copyright infringement is not stealing in any Biblical or historical sense.

The first copyright law was enacted in England in 1710.
http://www.copyrighthistory.com/anne.html
This is quite a bit after the 10 Commandments were handed down and is a fairly recent convention.  The US copyright term for unpublished works is currently 120 years after creation, so this is just a few generations on that scale.

Also in US law, theft is a purely a criminal offense, but copyright infringement is usually only prosecuted as a civil crime.  Extreme cases can also carry criminal penalties.
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#5
Additionally theft is illegal in all cases; copyright law has many exemptions (US Code, Title 17 §107–112)
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

Copyright infringement is also not piracy.  I think RMS does a pretty good job of explaining.
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

“Publishers often refer to prohibited copying as ‘piracy.’  In this way, they imply that illegal copying is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them.”

“If you don't believe that illegal copying is just like kidnaping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word ‘piracy’ to describe it.  Neutral terms such as ‘prohibited copying’ or ‘unauthorized copying’ are available for use instead.  Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as ‘sharing information with your neighbor.’”

RMS’ comments on the idea of Intellectual property are interesting too.
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty

RMS is not wholly against copyright.  He uses copyright law to enforce his Free Software licenses.

The interesting question remains whether it is beneficial to have a copyright system at all and whether our current copyright/patent system is actually “promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts” (US Constitution §8, clause 8).

How is saying that the Ten Commandments came well before the use of copyright laws a valid argument? In that sense, the bible came well before such things as smoking, shooting people (guns obviously weren't around), etc., and we cannot use the Bible to say that such things are wrong. However, that is ludicrious because Biblical principles are clearly against these things. Just as they are against taking something that you have not been given the right to take by the owner (and the person holding the copyright is still the owner, even if they sold a copy to someone else).

To use an example about pirates capturing and killing on the "high seas" is a weak argument. First, there are still people that are considered to be "pirates" today, and they aren't necessarily going and killing people. They are simply going aboard a ship and taking things that aren't their's...or more plainly put, stealing. Second, the term piracy may be used because it was a term that, when they were writing the laws, accurately described that which was going on. When a person "shares with their neighbor," they are taking that which does not belong to them, just as "pirates" do. They are stealing something that someone else has made, and has made legally protected against such acts.

The argument that it is simply tried in a civil court, and thus it is not a crime, is one that at best is unethical. There are many things, most of which anyone would say is a crime, that are not tried in criminal courts. Petty theft and domestic abuse cases are not tried in criminal courts, but municipal. The fact remains, however, that they are still crimes. I don't think that anyone would argue that. Also, to say that there are some exceptions to the copyright law, and thus it is okay to have file sharing is definately a stretch. Furthermore, the exceptions spelled out in the copyright laws (paragraph 108) would clearly exclude things such as file sharing!

Chris,

What you have presented are the most "reasonable" arguments that those involved in file "sharing" can produce. However, as Christians, we have a far higher goal than just producing reasonable justification or rationalization for our actions; we are required to glorify God in everything we do (1 Cor 10:31).

Therefore, the burden of proof is on you as a Christian to explain how file "sharing" brings glory to God. This explanation should follow two lines: first, give a biblically supported definition of stealing, and second, explain how the commonly accepted practice of file "sharing" is exempted from the former.

Here is my challenge: post hoc fallacies (the order in which the Ten Commandments were given vs. copyright laws), imprecise analogies (copyright infringement is usually tried in civil courts so it is not a crime), using loaded language and poisoning the well (piracy equals "killing and kidnapping"), and red herrings (maybe copyright laws are not the best way to do things has no bearing on their lawfulness) aside, prove from the Bible that a Christian may engage in file "sharing" to God's glory, obeying his commands not to steal (Exod 20:15; Eph 4:28) and to obey the laws of civil government (Rom 13:1-6; 1 Pet 2:17).

BTW, RMS thinks that the quandry can be resolved by redefining words to mean whatever suits him and his purposes. This is a dangerous loss of objectivity that can potentially backfire (e.g., if I redefine all his words!). It is uncanny, isn't it, how many words he has to redefine to make what he is doing seem legal??

MKP

I think there is not very much of a difference between what we are trying to say.  We agree that copyright infringement is illegal (except where that infringement is legally allowed), and we agree that it is wrong to break the law (except for cases where obeying the law would cause us to break God's law—and it's hard to think of a case where this could happen with current US law).

I think the only thing we disagree on is the semantics of whether copyright violations should be lumped together with theft.  Lots of things can be construed as theft.  For example, you could say that the state allots you 65 mph on the highway, and that going faster would be stealing speed from the state.  While it is breaking the law, I would not characterize speeding as theft.  In the same way, copyright is just a temporary granting by the state of a limited monopoly on the distribution of the copyright holder’s material.  If you want to say that illegal copyright infringement is theft, I disagree, but I am not going to argue this point any further.

Others, like the RIAA, have tried to make file-copying programs like grokster illegal (http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/ ) because they claim that the whole thing is purely for the purpose of illegally violating copyright.  They have tried to negate the exceptions that are provided for in copyright law.  At times, they have also harassed people who were not guilty of anything.

File-copying programs like ES5 share many similarities with a Xerox machine.  They are designed to copy.  The machine/program makes no choices about what is allowed to be copied.  The users are responsible.  Just like with a copy machine, it is illegal to copy certain things.  This does not mean that everything that is copied is illegal.  There are also many instances when it is legal to copy copyrighted material.  There is also material that is not covered under copyright law at all.

You still have not answered my argument. The issue is not whether there are items that can be legally copied or whether a computer program is moral or immoral.

My challenge to you (which you dismissed out of hand) still remains unanswered: what is stealing? When the Bible says, "Thou shalt not steal," what does that entail? Shoplifting? Pilfering? Petty theft? Larceny? Robbery? Burglary? Embezzlement?

Let's think "outside the box." Is frittering away time on the job a way of stealing? Could we say that filing a fradulent income tax return is subsumed under stealing?

What about cheating? That would be a much more appropriate example than speeding. All of your rationale for file "sharing" could be used in defense of cheating or plagerism.

How about adultery? One could argue that nothing tangible is taken, but is that really so? I would contend that adultery also violates the command not to steal.

It seems that you chose not to define stealing because any biblical definition would include all of the things I have listed above. A standard dictionary definition of stealing is "to take or appropriate another's property, ideas, etc. without permission, dishonestly, or unlawfully" (Webster's New World Dictionary, 3rd ed.).

Again, let's separate what we are and aren't talking about: we are not discussing sharing files that were designed to be shared, those which have expired copyrights, or those which are not under copyright protection. If this indeed is what we were discussing, what would be the advantage of any security or anonymimity built into a file "sharing" program.

We can allow people like RMS to redefine words and subsequently reshape the non-absolute thinking of an entire generation or we can bring the full force of God's Eternal and Authoritative Word to bear on the world around us. In summary, we must face up to the fact that illegal file "sharing" violates the eighth commandment.

I finally have a response ready but my webhosting company is having serious problems. Of course, the host is blaming the problem on me, but as it seems that others are having similar problems, and everything was working fine last week, I don't see how it's my problem.

http://www.movabletype.org/support/…
http://forum.powweb.com/…

Update: I followed the tips for better perl errors and discovered that Movable Type was having problems finding my plugins directory. The only plugin I had installed was the Bayesian filter from James Seng. For right now, the fix is to remove the plugin.

Everything is back to normal.

Sorry for this delayed response, but I was busy with other things, and, as you will see, there is quite a bit of research involved in this comment.

Let’s start back at the beginning and define theft.

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.:

Theft:

The felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.

Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.

Larceny:

The unlawful taking and carrying away of things personal with intent to deprive the right owner of the same; theft.  Cf. Embezzlement.

Embezzlement:

The fraudulent appropriation of property by a person to whom it has been intrusted; as, the embezzlement by a clerk of his employer’s; embezzlement of public funds by the public officer having them in charge.

Note: Larceny denotes a taking, by fraud or stealth, from another’s possession; embezzlement denotes an appropriation, by fraud or stealth, of property already in the wrongdoer’s possession.  In England and in most of the United States embezzlement is made indictable by statute.

All of these are based in the act of taking something tangible from it’s rightful owner and depriving the rightful owner of the use of this item.  When something is copied, there is nothing tangible taken from the owner.  The owner retains full use of whatever the item was that was copied.

In fact, before Congress added the criminal penalties to the copyright law, there were a few prosecuters who tried to press for criminal penalties by prosecuting on the basis of theft.  The judges in both of the cases ruled that copyright infringement cannot be prosecuted as theft.  Even the Department of Justice has a brief page covering this: Criminal Resource Manual—1858 Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property—18 U.S.C. § 2314

The first case was Dowling v. United States.  Beginning sometime in 1976 Paul Edmond Dowling and William Samuel Theaker began to manufacture and sell records containing compilations of unauthorized Elvis Presley recordings through the mail without paying royalties.  “They used material from a variety of sources, including studio outtakes, acetates, soundtracks from Presley motion pictures, and tapes of Presley concerts and television appearances.”  Dowling appealed all the crimes he was charged with except copyright infringement.  The remaining charges came from Title 18 U.S.C. § 2314, which covers interstate transport of stolen goods.  The Supreme court ruled that Section 2314 did not cover Dowling’s actions and they reversed the lower court’s decision that found him guilty.

From the Supreme Court ruling:

It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud.  The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: “‘Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner,’ that is, anyone who trespasses into his exclusive domain by using or authorizing the use of the copyrighted work in one of the five ways set forth in the statute, ‘is an infringer of the copyright.’ [17 U.S.C.] 501(a).” Sony Corp., supra, at 433. There is no dispute in this case that Dowling’s unauthorized inclusion on his bootleg albums of performances of copyrighted compositions constituted infringement of those copyrights.  It is less clear, however, that the taking that occurs when an infringer arrogates the use of another's protected work comfortably fits the terms associated with physical removal employed by 2314.  The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone.  But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use.  While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful [473 U.S. 207, 218] appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.  As a result, it fits but awkwardly with the language Congress chose—“stolen, converted or taken by fraud”—to describe the sorts of goods whose interstate shipment 2314 makes criminal.  “And, when interpreting a criminal statute that does not explicitly reach the conduct in question, we are reluctant to base an expansive reading on inferences drawn from subjective and variable ‘understandings.’” Williams v. United States, 458 U.S., at 286.

The second was United States v. LaMacchia.  In this case, David LaMacchia, a 21-year-old student at MIT, hacked into MIT's computers and created an encrypted distribution point for software such as Excel, WordPerfect and Sim City.  Unlike Dowling, LaMacchia did not charge for the software, so he made no money from the copyright infringement.  If licenses had been purchased for all the software copied, it would have totalled about $1 million of revenue for the copyright holders.

LaMacchia filed a motion to dismiss the “charges of conspiring with ‘persons unknown’ to violate 18 U.S.C. § 1343, the wire fraud statute.”  This motion was based on the precedent of the Dowling case.  The District Court of Massachusettes upheld this motion.

From the ruling:

The Dowling decision establishes that Congress has finely calibrated the reach of criminal liability [in the Copyright Act], and therefore absent clear indication of Congressional intent, the criminal laws of the United States do not reach copyright-related conduct.  Thus copyright prosecutions should be limited to Section 506 of the Act, and other incidental statutes that explicitly refer to copyright and copyrighted works.

I believe that there were a few other cases that were dismissed in a similar manner to LaMacchia, but Dowling and LaMacchia established the precident for these dismissals.  Today, both Dowling and LaMacchia would be charged with criminal copyright infringement, but not theft.

Also worthy of mention is Mark Rasch’s column from July 28, 2003 at Security Focus, “‘Copying is Theft…’And other legal myths in the looming battle over peer-to-peer.”

Now about your specific examples of frittering, cheating, plagerism and adultery.  I would have to do more looking to decide how all of these fit on the continuum, but right now, this is how I see it.  Frittering time away at work doing non-productive things seems a lot like small-scale embezzlement (a form of theft).  Cheating involves lying, deception and fraud.  When this fraud results in the transfer of some property, then it fits nicely with larceny (a form of theft).

There are no laws that specifically cover plagiarism.  There is a generally accepted method for citing sources, but it was not always that way.  Even writers of the Bible used other portions of scriptures without specifically noting where they came from.  Schools and businesses may have citation standards that will result in disciplinary action if the standards are not followed, but plagiarism is not necessarily illegal.  Plagiarism can be illegal copyright infringement, but it doesn't have to be.  Julie Hilden has an interesting article at FindLaw, “A Legal Remedy for Plagiarism? Rethinking the Ambrose and Goodwin Plagiarism Scandals.”

Adultery is a little different.  It fits somewhat better with trespassing.  Posession by one spouse of the other is given at marriage (I Corinthians 7:4).  The adulterer/adulteress does not marry their co-offender.  So they do not take posession of property that was another’s.  They might use it in the same way as if I stomp all over a flower garden, and decrease it’s value.  At no time during this stomping do I take posession of the flower bed and steal it.

Also, in theft, the property is a passive participant.  The money does not help you steal it from the bank.  Even with livestock, the animal may come along for the food or something, but you would have a hard time arguing it is cognizant of the plot to remove it from the owner.  In adultery, both participants are active and willing.  There are a few cases where one participant is not aware that the other is married, but generally that is not the case.

Additionally, you questioned the need for security in legal copying.  Do only criminals send letters in sealed envelopes?  Everyone should use post cards.  Only criminals need to hide their actions.  This is silly.  I have a right to privacy online just like offline.  One good way to achieve this is through secure proxies and encryption.

What if I want to share something that is legal to share (maybe I wrote it) but is extremely unpopular or is critical of powerful companies or politicians.  If I want to publish it without fear of reprisals, how would you suggest I do it without security.  Publishing on websites will not work because the offended person/company will sue the hosting company to have it removed.  The host will cave in so they do not have to pay court costs.

Why do we have our 4th ammendment?  Are criminals the only ones that need that kind of protection?  No, we all deserve protection from those who would seek to use power in illegal and unscrupulous ways.

The RIAA has a history of filing lawsuits and asking questions later.

• The RIAA harassed Penn. State Prof. Usher, threatening him with lawsuits unless his supposed infringing material was deleted
• The RIAA falsely accused Sarah Ward of illegal copyright infringement with KaZaa. She is a neophyte mac user (KaZaa is windows-only)
• In spite of the RIAA's poor track record with automated lawsuits, they started a system of spamming possible offenders with notices that copyright infringement is illegal
• In spite of the RIAA's poor track record with identifying offenders while protecting the innocent, The MPAA and RIAA have worked to get a law in place that would allow them to hack into your machine (trespass on your property without a warrant) and delete supposed offending files if they believe you are infringing on their copyright

I do not need to open myself to this kind of harrassment.  I should be able to take steps to avoid troublemakers like the RIAA and MPAA.

Just because the US Supreme Court has decided that copyright infingement is not stealing, that doesn't mean that biblically it isn't. There is clearly a difference from what God's Word, and God's law, says and what the Supreme Court's laws say. To give the higher authority to the Supreme Court is to say that the Bible is not authoritative, and thus does not have any bearing over your life at all. You are treading dangerous ground when you decide to follow sinful man's government rather than our Holy God's divine revelation.

That said, the argument of whether or not adultery is stealing...Your argument breaks down rather easily. A person that robs a bank is considered to be stealing money from that bank. However, when they are caught, that money has to be given back. The same goes with a person that is committing adultery. That person is still stealing, and it continues to go on normally until they are caught, when they are usually forced to "surrender" that which they have stolen over to the rightful owner. Yes, this is between two people that made a decision to do it, but it is still taking that which is not yours to have. Every man is to have their own wife (also from I Corinthians 7), and taking that which is not yours is still stealing, whether consentual by the two people involved or not. God has not given you the authority to do so, and so you are stealing.

Whether you like the means by which the RIAA and MPAA have gone about doing their work or not is irrelevent. We are commanded to be holy, separate people unto God. If we decide that simply because we are not in agreement with one's methods that we are going to do that which is clearly against scripture, which "sharing with one's neighbor" would be, then we are going against those commands, also. Our faith is shown in our works (James 2) and if those works are no different than those of the world, and those works are based on the worlds reasoning, then we better look long and hard at what our faith is based. If it truly is based on what Christ did, then we must follow Him, and cleave unto Him, not this world. We shouldn't be trying to justify our actions based on so-called injustices, nor should we have to. We are to be above reproach in everything.

The argument of plagerism from the Bible is totally off-base. The simple fact is that the author didn't need to give credit to the other writers because the author of all of the books was God. There was no instance of plagerism at all.

I do agree that there are times when things are okay to be shared, as in your instance of something you wrote. However, you know as well as I do that isn't what is going on. People are sharing things which are not legal to share, and therefore we as Christians should not be a part of it. We dont' go to bars because of the alcohol. However, not everyone at a bar is drinking. Some may just be there to eat. That doesnt' make it right for us to go, though. Once again, we are to be separate, and above reproach. If one sees us there, they assume we are drinking. If one sees us using file sharing software, they will assume you are sharing illegally. It is not a good testimony.

You can argue and find as many reasons as you want to say that it is okay if you really want to do it. However, the challenge is to see if God says it is okay. You can use as many court decisions and cries of unfairness as you want, but if you look at it through the "glasses" of your Bible, you will be hard pressed to find it to be something that we should be engaging in as beleivers.

There is some circular reasoning going on here.  What is the basis for calling illegal copyright infringement stealing?

If the basis is Biblical, then why is there no concept of copyright in the Bible?  I already pointed out how copyright was developed as a concession to the greed of the writer’s guild.

If the basis is Human, then support for this position needs to be given by those in authority in government.  Except for a few Congresspeople who have their hands in the pockets of big media, this support simply isn’t there.

This has nothing to do with the authoritativeness of the Bible.  The Bible is silent on copyright, so we are left to try to connect man’s law with principles.

You cannot logically say that copyright infringement is stealing based on the Biblical principles in the Ten Commandments.  Copyright infringement not been grouped with theft by either the Bible or human authority.

You cannot logically argue guilt by association.  Is every user of a Xerox machine associated with copyright infringement?  How about a VCR?  Maybe you believe you need to live without these last two devices in order to be above reproach, but I think it's a little silly.

In case you think this is an imprecise analagy, inventors of both devices were brought to court for aiding copyright infringement.  The courts ruled that a device that has significant non-infringing uses cannot be considered infringing.

In the case of the VCR, the MPAA was crying the blues that this would be the death knell for their industry.  They were using exactly the same arguments that are now being re-used for file-sharing software.

The courts have continued to rule that individual infringers are responsible for their actions, and that this does not affect responsible users or the inventors of the devices used.

Notice that nowhere in any of this have I said that it is right or good for a Christian to infringe copyright or to violate any other law.  I am simply saying that illegal copyright infringement is not theft.  Copyright is the law.

You also missed the point of my comments about the RI/MPAA.  They have the right to prosecute infringers, but I do not have to live in a glass house just so that they can be absolutely sure that no one is violating copyright.  The Fourth Ammendment trumps copyright law.  Everyone who tries to secure their privacy cannot be automatically lumped together with lawbreakers.

Your handwaving about plagiarism is pretty funny. If plagiarism fit with the Biblical concept of theft, wouldn’t plagiarizing/stealing from God be a serious offense?  If you say that God was giving implicit permission through inspiriation, then why didn’t God cite his sources as a good example.  Jesus paid his taxes even though it was the Roman government that owed him.  If you say that God was the sole author and didn’t need to cite himself, then you have a warped view of inspiration.  In the modern scheme for citing sources, authors will frequently cite themselves, and books with multiple authors will cite eachother’s works.

Okay Chris, this is the last. It is pointless to argue with you on this because you have already decided that it is not wrong to be involved in the process of copyright infringement. To answer your question about plagerism and the Bible, if you want to bring it to todays standards on plagerism, your argument still fails. It is not necessary to site something that is common knowledge, as the O.T. would have been to the readers of the N.T. epistles. Just like it is not necessary to say that, when someone says "we the people of the united states of america in order to form a more perfect nation," it is from the constitution, so was it not necessary to say that it was from certain books that they were quoting. It was common knowlege.

Second, you cannot say that just because something is not specifically mentioned in the Bible it is okay. There are plenty of things that go on today that weren't even heard of 2000 years ago, yet we would not say that just because they aren't mentioned by name the Bible doesn't condemn it. To do so you would have to have a "warped" view of the Bible.

As far as the "living in a glass house" analogy goes, if you are doing what is legal, then you dont' need to fear the government, or any other company that is trying to persecute you (John 3:20,21). The government, as clearly seen in the Bible, is there to be against those that are doing wrong (Romans 13:3). If you feel that you have to hide, whether you are doing something or not, that still gives the appearance of evil. You can argue all you want that just because you are using it doesn't mean that you are doing anything illegal, and that may be true. But you are using something that is a known means for doing something that is. I don't see how it is possible to say that you can back that up by any passage in the Bible, or how you can say that it doesn't make it wrong. Your reasoning would say that it is not wrong to go to a bar to eat, and that is. That is against all parts of Biblical Separation.

Throughout this argument you have refused to use any scripture that would back up your point. This, I believe, is because you know that it won't. You're trying to prove a point based on worldly reasoning, and as I said yesterday, that is dangerous. If you can't prove that it is something that you should be doing based on the Bible, which, as a Christian, should be your final authority, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. You have to realize that you are not representing yourself to everyone else. You are representing our Lord, and if it something that could possibly bring reproach to His name, then there is no reason that you should even consider doing it.

I do not disagree that these so called P2P programs can be used to do legal things, and that it might just be the case sometimes. However, I know for a fact that 99% of the time they aren't being used that way. To say that you can whole-heartedly support something that you know is allowing things to be done illegally is rather disturbing. It all comes down to your view of our God and His holiness. If He truly is holy, and you truly represent Him in your life, then you would not want to be doing those things which would tarnish His name, and His holiness.

I think several observations are in order:

• One more time, legal filesharing is not at issue here. The morality of a computer program (or anything) is not at stake because it has been twisted by sinful man to achieve his sinful goals (e.g., the internet, VCR's, etc.). The issue is not EarthStation 5 or any P2P program--it is the "sharing" of material under legal copyright. We all recognize the benefits and advantages of being able to share legal material. Chris, to continue to argue along these lines demonstrates either an inability or an unwillingness to grapple with the issues up for debate.
• A court case does not determine whether something is right or wrong; that privilege is reserved for the Creator. Therefore, citing a court case is not an appeal to the ultimate authority. Morality is based in God's unchanging holiness, while a court can revisit an issue and overturn a previous ruling. To the Christian who might debate this point, remember that a human court tried the Son of God and found him guilty of blasphemy.
• Chris, a question with which I challenged you several posts ago has yet to be answered:

"Therefore, the burden of proof is on you as a Christian to explain how file 'sharing' brings glory to God. This explanation should follow two lines: first, give a biblically supported definition of stealing, and second, explain how the commonly accepted practice of file 'sharing' is exempted from the former." -November 6, 2003 07:04 PM [emphasis added]

Because a biblical definition was never set forth, all of your semantical gymnastics have been beside the point. You must argue from the greater authority to the lesser, not vice versa.

• It seems that the issue here is not one of morality, but one of authority.

Chris, why do you refuse to argue on biblical grounds? What advantage does the world's wisdom have on God's truth (Rom 11:33-36; 1 Cor 1:19-20)? We have no doubt that you can find secular opinion somewhere on the internet to support your claims. Don't settle for that: present a biblical case as one who is trying to determine what pleases God (Eph 5:10).

There is no future in redefining stealing to exclude illegal filesharing except if one has an agenda to try to justify all file sharing. (This agenda is also supported by the classic liberal complaints about "big business" and "privacy rights".)

Is filesharing of copyrighted material (even if it is not stealing) still wrong? If you answer in the affirmative, then I will gladly concede all your citations and word games.

Is filesharing of copyrighted material (even if it is not stealing) still wrong?

Yes.  Copyright law is the law, and it is wrong for a Christian to break the law.  I do believe that copyright law needs an overhaul, but breaking the law is not the way to correct it.  A Christian should not be disobeying the law or practicing civil disobedience.  There is a narrow provision for civil disobedience when human law is preventing the Christian from obeying God's law, but it rarely applies to any situation, and I can't see any way it applies here.  I thought I had made this pretty clear before, but hopefully this clears up any confusion.

Any legislative changes should be driven through the normal, constructive routes of starting a bill in Congress or opposing a law in the Judiciary.

An example of such legislation (which I see as a positive step but not a complete solution) is the Public Domain Enhancement Act. The idea for this bill was first proposed by Laurence Lessig in an op-ed piece at The New York Times, “Protecting Mickey Mouse at Art's Expense” after the defeat of Eric Eldrich in Eldred v. Ashcroft.  Eric used the website he had already set up for his Supreme Court case to raise support for this bill and get it presented to Congress.

I'm happy. Thanks, Chris.

"Yes. Copyright law is the law, and it is wrong for a Christian to break the law"

Sometimes laws are wrong. In this case, the laws have been twisted and manipulated over and over until they became hard to comprehend and follow.