Are you justifying sin by supporting this?

[Jabre7]

If this sounds hostile to anyone, I don't mean any of that to whoever reads this.

Christians often insist copyright law, even people who agree it's far from clean, must be followed no matter what because the Bible says God wants us to follow the law of the land, that governments still enforce order and you're disobeying God, in effect, because He ordains them and this law doesn't forbid us following His will. On the principle behind this, i would agree. However...

 

You positively are NOT honoring God if you insist these laws have to be followed as a moral command.

 

Think about it, these companies insist you don't own something you bought with your own hard earned money, and do in fact steal it back(a form of fraud/scamming that anyone in their right mind would be outraged by with and rightly see as criminal behavior that cannot be justified or let slide with anything that's not media and say you shouldn't let yourself be stolen from/tell others they should let it happen), and justify it by "you agreed", "It's our legal right to use our products in such a way, we put so much work into it and made an IP for it after all!" Now I'm not saying take something currently being paid for, obviously that's wrong regardless, if only because the creators get their paycheck off of sales, but insisting God orders us to see torrenting something they've abandoned and have no interest in using anymore as a moral violation because "they technically still own it, and we must follow the law of the land!", is basically just justifying their sin, and in the name of God as well! Worse, it effectively does, in fact, insist you violate the principle of "only disobey laws that forbid you from what God says/order something morally wrong".

 

They're telling people, who see how hypocritical this all is, and how much they clearly see this as justifying an exception to something being a scam and being stolen from, that THEY'RE hypocrites because "God says render unto Ceaser what is his, end of story". They are not only projecting(lying to yourself and others), but engaging in the kind of hypocrisy Paul and Jesus would rebuke because you approve of, and endorse the sin of a group rendering unto themselves what is not theirs by any reasonable standard, insist they can have just about any standard with things they no longer will even use, or their currently used things, no matter how hypocritical they are, and tell people to let themselves be stolen from and obey this predatory behavior without question. In effect, they are committing the same sin these corporations do in denying they're subject to the basic morality of not trying to convince people some vile act of criminal behavior, done in the same way and without any nuance as it would be without being legal, must be obeyed because some fat cat lobbys for a bill that says it's magically not that. It is NOT a "rendering unto Ceaser" issue because as I said, in literally any other context this behavior would be seen as wholy criminal, and seen as there being no way to justify it, much less make excuses as for why you shouldn't speak up against it. Yet somehow the mere idea of "Intellectual Property"(which has only existed as a concept for a few hundred years, if you really want to argue the Bible supporting it) hand waves this away.

 

It doesn't really matter if they don't approve of said behavior or say "if you don't like these laws, work to change them" at that point, they are willfully denying the reality of the situation, and more or less shouting at others to do the same, gaslighting them into believing they're decieving themselves for not. There are alot of times when we do have to obey the law even if we disagree. That ends when you have to be a hypocrite and deciever youself to do so. I suggest you think on why you do this, if you do.

Edited November 20 by Jabre7
messed up editing badly

[Tristen]

Whilst I think you are engaging in rank overstatement by suggesting those who have a different opinion are "justifying sin", I personally have no moral issue with file sharing per se - so long as the product has been purchased somewhere in the chain of possession (e.g. a purchased hard copy, a movie ticket, a streaming subscription, etc.).

Stealing someone else's ideas (intellectual property) for profit is immoral (i.e. piracy).

Sharing is not immoral (to use a double negative). The fact that technology allows us to share in a manner whereby we can keep the original in our possession does not change that morality. Nor does the fact that the 'newer' technology potentially reduces the profitability of certain industries. Neither does the lobbying capacity of industry to make laws protecting its business models change the fundamental morality of sharing.

Now, whether it is wise for a Christian to engage in such activities is a much more nuanced issue - given that we are admonished to obey the laws of the land, and to consider the conscience of those who might not understand the freedom we have in Christ, and to avoid any appearance of evil.

 

[Jabre7]

18 minutes ago, Tristen said:

Whilst I think you are engaging in rank overstatement by suggesting those who have a different opinion are "justifying sin", I personally have no moral issue with file sharing per se - so long as the product has been purchased somewhere in the chain of possession (e.g. a purchased hard copy, a movie ticket, a streaming subscription, etc.).

Stealing someone else's ideas (intellectual property) for profit is immoral (i.e. piracy).

Sharing is not immoral (to use a double negative). The fact that technology allows us to share in a manner whereby we can keep the original in our possession does not change that morality. Nor does the fact that the 'newer' technology potentially reduces the profitability of certain industries. Neither does the lobbying capacity of industry to make laws protecting its business models change the fundamental morality of sharing.

Now, whether it is wise for a Christian to engage in such activities is a much more nuanced issue - given that we are admonished to obey the laws of the land, and to consider the conscience of those who might not understand the freedom we have in Christ, and to avoid any appearance of evil.

 

I added clarification to the post, if you're willing to re-read.

Also, Intellectual Property was only an idea a few hundred years ago, so it's hard to justify the Bible supporting a "moral truth"so relatively new, to put it lightly.

[Jabre7]

1 hour ago, Tristen said:

Whilst I think you are engaging in rank overstatement by suggesting those who have a different opinion are "justifying sin", I personally have no moral issue with file sharing per se - so long as the product has been purchased somewhere in the chain of possession (e.g. a purchased hard copy, a movie ticket, a streaming subscription, etc.).

Stealing someone else's ideas (intellectual property) for profit is immoral (i.e. piracy).

Sharing is not immoral (to use a double negative). The fact that technology allows us to share in a manner whereby we can keep the original in our possession does not change that morality. Nor does the fact that the 'newer' technology potentially reduces the profitability of certain industries. Neither does the lobbying capacity of industry to make laws protecting its business models change the fundamental morality of sharing.

Now, whether it is wise for a Christian to engage in such activities is a much more nuanced issue - given that we are admonished to obey the laws of the land, and to consider the conscience of those who might not understand the freedom we have in Christ, and to avoid any appearance of evil.

 

I'm sorry if I misunderstood you(I thought you were against me, lol). I do hope I have some more insight though.

[Tristen]

20 minutes ago, Jabre7 said:

I'm sorry if I misunderstood you(I thought you were against me, lol). I do hope I have some more insight though.

I think we agree that there is no inherent moral problem with file sharing - and that there is corruption in the manner by which industry has secured unjust laws against sharing - to protect its business model.

However, I balk at the insinuation that those who disagree with us are promoting evil. For some issues this type of rhetoric may be true - but not this issue. On this issue, Christians should be permitted to respectfully disagree with each other (without the fear of pejorative insinuations being levelled against their faith).

 

[Jabre7]

59 minutes ago, Tristen said:

I think we agree that there is no inherent moral problem with file sharing - and that there is corruption in the manner by which industry has secured unjust laws against sharing - to protect its business model.

However, I balk at the insinuation that those who disagree with us are promoting evil. For some issues this type of rhetoric may be true - but not this issue. On this issue, Christians should be permitted to respectfully disagree with each other (without the fear of pejorative insinuations being levelled against their faith).

 

I do admit I was harsh in my wording. I can get pretty emotional over lies being spread like some kind of immutable truth(perhaps because of my very bad history with cults and their mindsets forced on me). I hope you forgive me. I wasn't calling them evil necessarily, just needed to make certain my point was getting across, it was trying to correct on account of them being genuinely confused or not seeing the whoke picture, rather than "Bible Thump" them if that makes sense.