Ethical aspects:
I had an interesting discussion today on Twitter with Ron Marz (the most triumphant writer of truly excellent comic books – including Witchblade, my main comic read). It was about downloading – in his context comics, but I was probably thinking more about music. I also take a detour into a more general discussion about ethics and philosophy – one aspect, at any rate: my take on the true role of philosophy, which is rather real-world, rather than ivory tower.
Ron’s view is a (very defensible) black and white one: if the creator/copyright holder wants to make their work available for free, they can do so, but without their permission, it’s not ok to download/upload … steal … their work. For the sake of argument I raised the unavailability issue: what if you can’t find it to buy? (for example deleted/out of print cds … like the Bangalore Choir cd I did manage to find eventually on eBay 
). Here I will (partially) quote Ron: “tough shit”. That made me have a think – although I do buy rather than download: I <3 iTunes, and 80sTunes, and eBay .. because with my predilection for hair metal, most record shops just don’t do it for me 
So if I already agreed with Ron, why did it make me have a think? Because without thinking about it, I had rather bought into the idea that if something wasn’t available otherwise it might be ok to download it: since it can’t be bought, the artist wouldn’t get any money anyway, and nor would the record company (and despite any opinions we might have about record companies and the music “industry”, they’ve put in money, and distribution, and the contracts say they get money…) – so no harm, no foul … Right?
Wrong. As much as any of us might like to think otherwise, if something isn’t available to buy, that doesn’t change either the legal or moral aspect of nicking it (which is what downloading / filesharing / etc is, stripped of the euphemisms). Sure it does change the practical aspect of material harm, but that’s all.
Ayn Rand was fairly extreme, but one idea of hers I rather like is the Objectivist notion that some things are cut and dried right or wrong. Context, in that view, doesn’t matter. The usual objections raised to the notion that stealing, or homicide are always morally wrong are vignettes like a pauper stealing bread to feed his starving family, or someone killing a violent criminal threatening one’s family. I would argue though, that the context does not change the moral nature of those acts of theft or homicide; simply it provides a reason why you would commit those acts – and a justification for doing so. The act of theft is still morally wrong, but the duty of providing for your family overrides that (or put another way: allowing one’s family to starve would be more morally wrong. Similarly, killing the family-threatening psychopath (FTP ) would still be a morally wrongful act, but not protecting one’s family would be moreso.
“Oracular Ethics”:
Of course, none of us would be stopping to weigh up the pros and cons, and relative moral wrongfulness of either doing in the FTP or letting him do in one’s family … we’d all (I would assume) just wade on in there and do what we had to. In other words, we make our choice without conscious reference to the ethics or morals of that choice. I would argue however that that can in fact be a perfectly ethical/moral way of behaving – though there are a couple of things that impact.
It’s like Neo’s interactions with the Oracle in the Matrix films (bear with me … ). In The Matrix Reloaded, Neo asks her: “Are you saying I have to choose whether Trinity lives or dies?” and the Oracle replies: “No, you’ve already made the choice. Now you have to understand it.” Just before that, she told Neo: “We can never see past the choices we don’t understand” – she says almost the same thing again in The Matrix Revolutions, referring to herself that time.
To me, that’s what philosophy is about: not determining, but understanding, the choices we make. Other than persons disturbed in various ways, most of us are reasonably moral beings – at least I’d like to think so … maybe that’s why (and because) I don’t watch the news 
In any case, if I continue to believe that, I will believe that most of our choices are moral. However, if we don’t understand the choices, we cannot see past them. This raises the need for reflection and honest self-examination (which is really what I was referring to earlier, when I mentioned that I was prompted to think further about this despite basically agreeing with Ron). By examining and understanding our choices, our behaviour, we can see past them, and develop as moral beings – which will enhance future decision-making…. Rinse and repeat.
Internet Entitlement:
Unfortunately that reflection is something we’re generally not good at. Coupled with the availability of pretty much everything on the internet, I think we have developed a sense of entitlement: “If I want it then I ought to be able to have it”. As you can see, that’s precisely what lies behind the argument that it’s ok to download something otherwise unavailable. At that level it might cause no material harm, but really it’s no different from the entitlement of wanting something but being unable to afford it, and so downloading it. I would like to claim perfectly ethical status here, but in the past my feet have been clay – though now what I have is either bought or open-source (software). The fact that I like proper cds in nice cases, and actual paper comic books has made it much easier to be legal with music and comics
In almost any situation in life we have to weigh up competing imperatives, and we might not all make the same choices. While I don’t think we should necessarily all move in lock-step, I do think we should be honest with ourselves, and examine the ethics of what we do, striving always to develop further as moral beings.
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