Sad and all too true.
I hadn't considered the equivalence between piracy (in content owners' terms), wastage (in supermarket terms) or fraud (in credit card providers' terms). It feels like there is something there.
There are penty of laws against stealing: why does every industry need a specific set for itself?
Why The Movie Industry Can’t Innovate and the Result is SOPA
This year the movie industry made $30 billion (1/3 in the U.S.) from box-office revenue.
But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. Where did the other $57 billion come from?
From…
Probably because there not an equivalency between file sharing and theft. Theft denies the right of an owner the use of their chattel.
Infringement denies a creator the control of what happens to their expression once it’s out on the world. But you can’t own an idea. The best we can do is balance the needs of the public domain (to which all ideas belong) and the needs of creators who deserve a chance to profit from their creations before others use it and improve it.