wheel - 3:20 am on Mar 30, 2009 (gmt 0)

Copyright infringement is nasty stuff. Screwing with someone else's content is little different than stealing.

Except there are countries where not only is doing so quite legal, it's common accepted practice and people don't see anything wrong with it. It's quite ethical.

I recently had someone describe paid blogging to me as nasty as well. I believe they might change their tune if they were in a country where it was not only perfectly acceptable and routine, but if in doing so they earned $5US and that was going to feed their kids for the day. I'm pretty sure their high horse would find the distasteful all of a sudden quite palatable - and ethical if it meant the difference between putting food on the table for your kids or not.

I could care less about your ethics, particularly on the web. I have my ethics and reasons for them, and I'm relatively consistent. And I certainly don't see things that are illegal where I live as being prone to much leeway. But ethics on the web? Puleeeze. right for you <> right. Ethics on the web is just an excuse for the narrow minded to act in a dictatorial fashion.

And don't get me started on the idea of karma. that's right up there with santa claus in my books. There is no karma. Plenty of people make lots of money and live very well simply by screwing enough people over. And plenty of very nice people live their life getting screwed over. Neither santa claus nor karma comes to visit - whether or not they're on the naughty or nice list.