This is a valuable and important angle to the discussion. I have discussed it on my own blog (http://blog.wolftune.com/2008/06/rational-view-of-copyright.html — with reference, among other things, to studies YOU have done!) and in many conversations.

The discussion here seems to be missing the acknowledgement that legality is not necessarily morality. There are plenty of examples of laws that have been or are immoral. Anyway, it is arguably fair use to copy library items to one’s music player because that is necessary for listening in that format. Keeping the copies indefinitely is where it gets illegal. If they are deleted when the original is returned to the library, then it is almost certainly legal. But again, legal judgments do not necessarily equal moral judgments.

The bigger point is: if we accept the premise that illegal copying (assuming long-term saving) is wrong, we are still left with the question of normal borrowing-type library use. If it is both legal and moral to borrow temporarily from the library but not legal or moral to copy or file-share copyrighted material, WHY? Is this judgment justified? If I borrow an item on multiple occasions from the library versus download the material from the internet, what is the moral distinction? What difference does it make? Again, it isn’t moral or immoral purely because it is legal vs illegal, there must be a moral distinction if we are to judge the actions differently on a moral ground.

I think the real answer is that once we accept the value and morality of libraries generally, this perspective devastates most of the arguments against file-sharing. For the most part, file-sharing serves the same function as the library. If the only distinction is legality, then the law has no moral basis. I think there may be some distinctions, but these need to be identified. Furthermore the distinctions between library use and file-sharing are the only legitimate distinctions for the moral discussion of copyright — if we accept libraries as positive and moral.

Let’s just put it this way: Is anyone suggesting libraries are ok only because they are inefficient or under-utilized? If the library system were more widely used and even more efficient, wouldn’t we all cheer that and see no moral problem? So how would that be different from online file-sharing?

“the potential for getting caught, and for getting reprimanded is probably just as big a deterrent of downloading/sharing copyrighted content.” – yes, I’m sure that’s a significant factor in many people’s choice whether or not to break the law. But the issue here wasn’t about people choosing to break the law, it was about people talking as though a certain action isn’t illegal, so they aren’t (at least consciously) choosing to break the law, they are doing something which they have somehow convinced themselves is not against the law.

On copying content from the library – it my be illegal, but it’s not enforceable (difficult to do so) and there aren’t well publicized cases of agencies going after offenders. Jaywalking is illegal in NYC (I would assume) but nobody thinks they’re breaking the law because it’s not enforced. Same holds true in other metropolitan areas. I think what was mentioned in the original post about the ease of ripping CDs vs the perceived difficulty of downloading music may be true (should be tested), but I believe that the potential for getting caught, and for getting reprimanded is probably just as big a deterrent of downloading/sharing copyrighted content.

I would even go further and claim that people consider downloading illegal because of what Dan Ariely and others call “self – herding” – that is, the tendency of people to remember and follow blindly their past decisions and, I would add, forget the reasons that lead them to make these decisions in first place.

How is this idea related to the post? Well, I believe that when people are asked whether they think that downloading is legal and moral they look at their past and try to find an incident in which they, themselves, downloaded some content. When they find there isn’t such an incident, they conclude that their “past-self” probably had a good, moral reason not to download and therefore they think that it is more illegal than streaming. In reality, the reason they never downloaded is solely because they had no idea how to do it.