Sharing an original work against the express wishes of the creator? Nope, you are dishonouring their hard work in creating the content and their intentions in making it available to the public.
I supposes breaching the terms of the GPL would be 'honourable' too.
How can sharing something be wrong? Especially when it is essentially a bunch of 0s and 1s that you could write down by hand if you had the patience to? Sharing a number is wrong?
I don't understand what that has to do with GPL at all.
Just like the GPL, copyright puts conditions on the disposal of a work. There are no physical restrictions in either case, just the idea that you honour these terms.
Would you feel comfortable walking past an artist trying to graft a living selling paintings/prints in a street stall, then against his wishes take a picture of them and tell him you're going to share these with your friends so they don't have to buy his work? Does that seem honourable to you?
Also consider a situation whereby two parties had a contract dictating the terms of how some artistic work could be used. There's obviously nothing wrong with this since both parties have agreed to the contract. Then say some third party illegally acquires the work and makes it available elsewhere. Seems fair that at this point we can rely upon copyright to protect the work of citizens. Just like you have privacy rights and defamation rights and so on.
> How can sharing something be wrong? Especially when it is essentially a bunch of 0s and 1s that you could write down by hand if you had the patience to?
Everything in the world is essentially just a bunch of atom, too. By this logic you can probably do anything you want and never be wrong, right?
GPL is about sharing the source code of the original or derivative work. Which is pretty honorable. Breaching the terms of GPL means refusing to share.
Regarding your first point, yes, since we're speaking about ethics here, it's morally acceptable to disregard wishes of authors to restrict your freedom of handling copies of their published work, as long as doing this is good for people and makes no harm to authors.
Seriously, what is wrong with people's moral compasses with regards to sharing? Is this the result of brainwashing by publishers? OK, laws are laws, but morals? They have nothing to do with laws. Oh the mighty author, should I apologize to you (or, perhaps, go to jail) for signing your songs before you died + century?
But the point, I believe, is that the concept of breaching the GPL is nonsensical if you do not respect the GPL or the copyright law on which it rests. Whether if you share something against its creator's will, or if you refuse to share something against its creator's will, in both cases you are ignoring the creator's wishes and violating copyright law.
Yes. But speaking in terms of morale, not laws, not sharing the source code for GPL software is morally wrong and dishonorable. Sharing it is morally right and honorable.
