So this person is in jail for facilitating the ability of others to share restricted patterns of 1s and 0s. I hope this is as absurd to everyone as it is to me.
When you kill someone you take away their life. Can you see the difference?
When @ntumlin says "it's just a bunch of ones and zeroes" he completely disregards the intangible but very valuable order existing within them. Smash a glass to smithereens, but keep every one, and you still have "a bunch of atoms". Their arrangement, however, is very different - and far less valuable. Focusing only on the atoms to evade responsibility for the value lost in smashing the glass suggests you don't recognize the value of the unbroken glass, which is nonsense. Of course you recognize the value, which is why framing the situation to suggest otherwise is dishonest. And expecting others to go along with an obvious charade is abusive.
Beyond your dishonesty, @ntumlin, there's also real harm in your actions (assuming they reflect your thinking). The thing you have failed to acknowledge is that that, when you make a copy, you create an obligation to pay the holder of the copyright a specific amount of money. In other words, when you make a copy a portion of your money stopped being yours and became the author's. He now has a claim (albeit a small one) on your wealth. In the event of a failure to pay, the thing stolen is not the file itself, it's the money. THAT'S what you're stealing. Not the music, the money.
"Ok" you say "but I deleted the file". That's irrelevant. You're legal obligation isn't connected to having the file, it's connected to making it. Obviously, there are fair use laws that specify a range of situations in which making a copy doesn't trigger a corresponding obligation to pay. But if you're operating outside those parameters, then you're on the hook.
There's no scarcity of files. But there's a real scarcity of people with the time, talent, and resources to make really worthwhile content. And it's the arrangements - not the bits - is what constitutes our culture. At present, there's no reasonable way to enforce people's obligations to share the cost of what they otherwise "share" freely. That's where you find the deprivation - in the money that is no longer changing hands. And, if you think that a person who goes bankrupt because they can no longer charge for their work isn't harmed, you need a new definition of "harm".
One more thing: saying - as you do - that "it's just a bunch of ones and zeroes" to a person who may have sweated blood and tears for years to produce the arrangement that actually attracted your attention is just awful. It's an attitude that reflects something deeply rotten about you as a human being. Just understand this: culture thrives in spite of people like you, not because of them. In addition to the money you owe directly to artists, you own a debt of gratitude to those who did get them paid when you refused to do the same.
How much do I owe you?
That's where you find the deprivation - in the money that is no longer changing hands. And if you think that a person who goes bankrupt because they can no longer charge for their work isn't harmed, you need a new definition of "harm".
How does that not apply to second hand sales? Have I robbed RHCP when I sold my album on Ebay? After all, and unlike in P2P, the buyer was demonstrably willing to fork money for it, and so it's more likely that (s)he would have bought a new CD if I hadn't sold him/her mine.
I do think that filesharing should be legal, but the arguments you're making are losing ones. I think the real reason behind it relates to the purpose of copyright: http://zacharyalberico.com/day/2012/01/24
Apologies about linking to my own blog - but I wrote it up there so I don't have to rewrite it everywhere.
For physical things, sure, but for digital goods, that's not so clear. A P2P network that automatically lent (copy+delete local) files would require only a very small number of bought copies, if the client could request a copy, play it and then release it immediately.
I also acknowledge that creators should be justly compensated for their works that I intend to use.
There are a fairly limited number of ways that that can work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#The_free_rider_prob...
So no, you haven't robbed anyone in the case of a second hand sale, since the law never recognized an obligation for buyers of second hand media to pay authors and publishers in the first place.
This underscores the extent to which the determination of theft depends not on the making of copies itself, but on the parallel (and completely artificial) institution that attaches legal obligations to the act of copying in certain, specific cases.
However, the law doesn't recognize that harm as significant enough to be legally actionable. To the contrary, it recognizes that always placing the interests of authors above those of the public would do the public intolerable harm, and that the author is going to have to live with a less-than perfectly controlled market if he wants any control at all. What the author of a desirable work CAN expect is that there will be a reasonable volume of exchanges in which unavoidable obligations to pay do arise. Based on these he (or, more likely, his publisher) can invest in production accordingly.
If your copies and exchanges take place outside this range, then there's no way for the publisher to claim he's being unreasonably harmed by them, since the law gave him no reason to expect that he'd profit from these transactions in the first place. But if they take place within the parameters of demand that the law allowed him to bank against, then the illegal dilution of his legally recognized market constitutes very real harm.
Meanwhile, the artist is in a position to increase their demands related to this follow-up effort, so saying that the publisher's success has no bearing on the artist's isn't correct. Yes, the artist has to negotiate well and produce more to realize that benefit, but the absence of a clear path isn't the same as the absence of any path.
When @ntumlin says "it's just a bunch of ones and zeroes"
ntumlin did not say any such thing.
They're playing with fire with their reaction to the pirate bay. Soon they'll be the ones locked up.