Digital Crime

So, I have been having this ongoing discussion(argument) with this guy from work who constantly uses a bit torrent site to watch movies that he doesn't pay for and some that haven't even left theatres. He also does this with music. His argument is this...

"I download them and watch them once and then delete them. The movie studios are making enough money that me doing this isn't hurting them."

We have gotten into countless heated debates about this because I am of the opinion that not only is this breaking the law, which he doesn't deny or argue, but that morally it is wrong. Here is my stance...

"While I understand that sometimes you watch a movie or buy a CD that is bad and you feel you have wasted your money, that does not give you the right to steal. Also, movie studios and music labels do have tons of money flooding in but just because someone is rich, it does not give anyone the right to steal from them. We can't have standards of law for different classes of people. Just because someone has more money doesn't give you the right to take their property."

I know this is very Republican of me but I don't understand why people feel it is their right to take this. I do think their is one loophole to all of this and that is media sharing.

If I buy a CD and let someone copy it, then that is my property that is being utilized. While I understand that also hurts the music industry and movie sales, at least this is something that I have initially bought. Truthfully, I only allow one or two people to share music with me and most of the time that is not buy burning media but buy copying it for listening use only.

Am I wrong on this? Maybe for the sharing stuff I am. I don't know. I will say that I know I am right in the movie download thing but I am not adverse to admitting that I am a tad bias on the sharing topic. I just don't understand when people started to feel entitled to stuff that wasn't theirs. By the way, I really need to issue an apology to KMart for stealing all of those trading cards when I was younger.

That is all,

Newt