Quote Originally Posted by dirge View Post
STL asked the question about is there a difference, and pretty much everyone who who has responded has said yes - including many such as myself who buy neither (and aren't looking to make any sort of excuse for themselves). I don't see why those who claim there is a difference are being shot down with such determination. Why encourage a discussion only to dig one's heels in when presented with alternate points of view? Those defending the original viewpoint are heading further and further into legal hypotheses to defend the original point of view, which was more about ethics than legality.

STL doesn't see the difference between KOs and fan items, and he's welcome to that stance. But this thread feels more like an attempt to convince the world of this opinion than to have a meaningful discussion about whether or not there is a difference.

I'm not trying to point the finger at STL (and it's nothing personal), by the way, but this thread feels more like a crusade to put across one viewpoint than an attempt to generate meaningful discussion. I'm generally a fan of the soapboxes, but in this case I can't help but feeling the original argument just doesn't stack up at all - no matter how it's reworded. So yeah, I'm done with it. Bring on XIII.
I have to vehemently disagree there.

While the Soapbox exists for the purpose of generating discussion, its daft to say it can’t propogate a point of view. And it always does. It’s just that on this particular issue there’s a large schism and comes way too close to home than most would like. It attacks the convenient truths, it challenges the paradigms that we currently hold.

There’s nothing wrong in that, is there?

It’s like an opinion piece that tries to put a point of view out there. It does so by considering multiple facets. And in each and every response, I’ve raised many countering moral quandaries but few have been responded to. I should note, Dirge, that that includes yourself. You’re willing to make baseless accusations like that this is completely a legalistic approach that I’ve ignored others viewpoints when I’ve endeavoured to respond to each and every response with careful reasoning. I haven’t been facetious, I’ve tried to highlight some very large moral issues but convenient truths should not obscure.

No one’s still answered the fundamental moral questions.

Is it okay to steal as long as you steal from someone if their a multi-national corporation?

Is it okay to steal as long as you derive some benefit from it and it’s not to your detriment?

Is it okay to steal as long as what is stolen wasn’t going to be used anyway?

Is it okay to make that decision to steal based on your own subjective probabilities of whether that something isn’t going to be used in the future?

And really I don’t mind that no one has responded to those points. Because I think that itself underlines some critical points and goes to the heart of some core issues about the activity of collecting itself. How collectors can adopt convenient truths provided it gives them what they want. But that’s neither here nor there. It annoys me that it can even asserted that I’ve ignored others viewpoints when I have myself been ignored.

I certainly don’t for a moment have a single misgiving about people ignoring me but it I do have a misgiving about people telling me I’ve ignored others.

It only bothers me that someone can sit there and suggest that for a moment I’ve ignored all other viewpoints, Dirge. I’ve worked though them carefully, offering reasoned counterpoints in depth and at length. Do look over the entire thread again. To suggest that I’ve ignored the views of others illustrates misrepresents me and the nature of this thread when I’ve embraced all points though I don’t necessarily agree. That is crude. That is unfair. That is disappointing.