So, I was reading this article in the newspaper about how the major record labels are starting to crack down on internet piracy. To sum up, they've gone so far as to contact major internet service providers and college campuses, asking for the contact info of piraters so they can subpoena them. Quite frankly, these Draconian moves disgust me. It really pisses me off that we live in a society where we, as consumers, are taught from a very young age, that stealing is wrong. But why are we taught this? Are we taught that stealing is wrong because it is ethically reprehensible? I wish. No, we're taught that stealing is wrong because it will detract from the profits of Giant Mega-corporation somewhere, under the pretense of being ethically reprehensible. I mean, it is wrong for a pirater to steal a two dollar song from a major record company, but it is ethically okay for a major record company to charge a customer twenty times the cost price of a CD? Or for a company to produce clothing through the use of sweatshop labour? They're both forms of theft, except that one form is carefully protected by the laws of the land, and incidentally, that form of theft is far more substantial than the other as well.