There's also the matter of the "zero sum game fallacy".
The software and entertainment industries create a lot of moral panic with this one.
Every pirated copy is posed as a lost sale at an income loss equal to the total retail value of those copies.
But in reality there is little validity to that argument. A great many, maybe most, pirated copies would never have been purchased instead. On the other hand some retail purchases may well have only been made knowing that they can be shared with mates as a quid pro quo. Certainly true of music CDs.
It's not a zero sum game. The industry only loses money when it loses sales.
It's illegal. It may annoy them. But whether the loss to the producers is anything like as big as they claim is a different kettle of ball games.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
