Don't conflate lawful/unlawful with right/wrong -- it always leads to incoherent positions.
Unfortunately, to many on HN, when people freely take the information created by content creators it's "disruption of outdated business models", but when the NSA freely takes their own information it's an "invasion of privacy". They simply don't realize that everybody would like to control the spread of information that is significant to themselves. This is why certain laws exist, yet they denounce some laws (such as copyright) as "wrong". The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
Riiiiight.... Not conflating at all....
You're free to disagree with me. You may hold a different opinion. That's perfectly fine. However a dissenting opinion does not mean I conflated the situation. It does not mean that I'm acting irrationally. It's simple a different opinion.
I don't mind downvotes for disagreeing with the HN HiveMind.
So NZ has laws and treaties. Great. Should they? What's the tradeoff? Is the prosecution of someone who is clearly guilty allowing a greater evil to occur? Is the copyright system and corporate influence of governments a problem?
I would have loved to hear the answers to any of these questions, but what I got was essentially "he is a criminal" and "laws shouldn't be broken". Sure.
When you have to hedge your comments like this, it's generally because your arguments are weak.