I am neither qualified nor have any interest in representing "the file-sharing community." Nor will I waste any effort on ethical arguments, because they're all pointless. They don't matter.
They don't matter because there are millions, if not hundreds of millions of people (and if not hundreds of millions yet, there soon will be) sharing files over the Internet. These people either don't believe or simply don't care that there is anything ethically wrong with what they're doing. The most perfectly-crafted and philosophically sound arguments will not change this. We're talking about millions and millions and millions of people.
The reality of the situation is that pretty well all available digital content will be freely copied, no matter the ethical arguments, no matter the digital rights management, no matter the laws built to prevent it. That's reality. The amount of content that is freely available now is staggering, and growing by the day. The peer-to-peer networks, built by millions of people sharing digital content, now amount to a massive decentralised data warehouse. It is the largest repository of culture that humanity has ever known.
Millions and millions and millions of people are using the peer-to-peer networks every day. They are not going to stop because of proclamations, laws, or technical blockades. These people are your future, a rising tide. They're not bullying you, stealing from you, they're just moving on by while you're failing to keep up.
The creators of digital content will realise, sooner or later, that selling copies of something that can be copied for free is a really, really dumb idea. They need a new business model. It's not hard to do, even I've come up with a viable model. It won't be long before artists can make money alongside the file sharing community; if people want the content that artists create, there will be a way.
It's not an ethical or legal argument, it's just reality. There's no point living in denial.
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