...deriving value from the product of someone else's labor without exchanging something in return.
...it is a moral argument
I gave a list of examples right off the top of my head that fit this statement, clearly demonstrating that someone
benefiting from your labor does not
necessarily equate to you being
harmed. That's the point. The burden of proof for some violation of morality for the case you describe remains unsatisfied. You say it's "obviously" different but you can't specify how it's different in a way that demonstrates harm to the creator.
You've implied before that such behavior may be rude, a claim with a much lighter burden of proof certainly than "immoral", but I disagree even with that claim.
I didn't want to see 2081 badly enough to pay $12 for it. If it were feature-length, I probably would have wanted to own the DVD for my collection. At 24 mins, I wouldn't even bother to go to the trouble to burn a copy to disk, much less pay $12 to own it. Even when I watch a feature-length movie for free (Netflix, movie night, etc.), I often buy the DVD for my collection if I like it enough and can find it for a reasonable price. I saw someone elses
horrible quality "pirate" version of the latest Star Trek (video cam in the theater) but I liked it enough that it put me on the lookout for the official DVD at a reasonable price so I could watch it whenever the mood hits me and in much better quality. Sure enough, I bought it.
Let's say for argument sake that creators somehow have complete control over who gets to enjoy their films. Knowing that I will not pay the price they want, would they choose for me to not see it at all? That means if someone asks me about it, instead of saying it was good and had some great libertarian themes, I'll just say I haven't seen it. All I have to convey about the film is that I didn't value it enough to pay for it which isn't a great selling point to anyone who knows me and values my opinion, and they asked for it, after all.
Pirating Wide scale free proliferation increases profits for the creators of content. An artist who wants people to do without even at the cost of harm to himself is being vindictive and irrational. It's simply a bad business model, even if it were possible to control such proliferation (
it's not, and it's just going to get harder). Such an attitude shrinks the proverbial resource pie. It's an irrational claim that it's immoral for someone to gain value while causing no harm whatsoever to anyone. This is deep-seated programmed thinking that has no logical foundation. Don't cop out and claim it's obvious. If it's logical, prove it.