A few days ago I posted this link to a piece by Scott Adams questioning whether violating someones copyright is theft. Yesterday Poncelet took the opportunity to post a reply. The really amusing thing for me is that Adams had already posted a response. According to Adams the first piece was an experiment in generating cognitive dissonance in the responses. One of my favorite examples of cognitive dissonance from Poncelet’s post:

When you “buy” these underpants, some of that money goes to the person who designed them. The rest goes to the company that mass-produced them and the company that shipped them. Some of that money finds its way to entities who are preparing to sue you for wearing your underpants improperly.

In other words:

1. Money from album sales goes towards the labels and the RIAA who might sue me.
2. When I violate copyright I’m stealing from the artist who created the music.
3. It’s okay because I’m hurting the labels and the RIAA worse than the artist.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.