A very interesting essay. I strongly suggest everyone read it, no matter what your opinion on the issue. I don't agree with him, but if this is the viewpoint of the younger generation, it needs to be taken into account.

"In the case of file-sharing, such a maxim could be “it is ok to share other people’s property”."

This statement has at least one important premise - that files can be considered property. In the context of the file sharing problematic, it is even more general - can ideas be considered property?

The problem with a lot of file sharing analysis is that it silently assumes that ideas are property, that money is an incentive for creativity and that restricting distribution of information is the only economical model available in these fields.
All of these premises are actually very questionable. They mimic the vision which large corporations and pro-copyright groups have successfully planted into the public opinion.
At the same time, all of them can be shown to be generally false.
That ideas cannot be property can be shown by very simple analysis. An example of such analysis is here:
http://www.louigiverona.ru/?page=projects&s=writings&t=authorship&a=authorship_property
That money is not an incentive of creativity can also be shown. Businesses have made it possible to make people think that money is an incentive for artists. In reality, money is an incentive for businesses, since a business is an activity the goal of which is to make money. They view the rest of the world through their eyes. But the non-business world lives by very different rules and incentives. In this world money can be an enabler, but rarely an incentive. The difference between an enabler and an incentive is inherently huge and brings on absolutely different conclusions and judgments.

The question is complex, but not impossible to grasp. That file sharing is morally justified - there is no question, to anyone who has really put some thinking into it.

Hello Luigi. Thank you for your comments and for posting a link to your article. It contains interesting insights. I wrote the post from the perspective of how adeas are treated in current society, and that is, indeed, as patentable/copyrightable/trademarkable property. The questions that you raise are valid, but very fundamental. Nonetheless, they are very interesting one worth to be debated.

For the purpose of this blog, we assume that the current dominant socio-economic model, based on capitalist principles, is not going to change dramatically. Supporting the entire abolishment of intellectual property would require a fundamental shift in the way societies are organised. That discussion reaches outside of the scope of this blog.

That out of the way, I agree with you that protecting creativity (the purpose of IP) is not an incentive to create, but rather an enabler to make a living from that creativity. Still, I don't believe that does anything to detract from its importance. My girlfriend has a design studio and needs her creativity to be acknowledged and protected in order to enable her to make a living with her work. The same goes for actors, directors, game designers, writers and musicians.

I see - about the goal of this blog.
However, I do not agree that creativity needs to be protected - certainly not in the manner they started doing it in the XX century. Before IP came into existence as an idea, thousands of writers, philosophers, musicians and architects have filled the world with great things. As it can easily be shown with facts, composers were greatly flattered if another composer would take their work and write variations for it. Today it is considered an offense and a rip off. You say your girlfriend has a design studio and that she needs her rights protected. But protected from what? From her works being used by other people? It is rarely a problem. If she designs things, she gets money for her work. There is no need to hunt down people who saw her design and made something similar. I do not understand why one cannot use ideas of others. In fact, my sister is also a graphical designer and she has no problem making a living without suing everyone around. If a photographer is selling copies of his photos, then of course, this will not work. This is a bad business model, absolutely inadequate to the situation around. But I know loads of photographers who make their living without selling copies of their works. In general, selling copies of a work done once should either be very cheap or not be there as a serious model at all. It's like making money of thin air, once making copies of virtually anything became cheap nowadays. You also say that for the scope of this blog it is not important whether making a living off of art is an incentive or an enabler. But this makes a whole lot of a difference! Without noting this difference all of the rest analysis is superficial, in my opinion. I agree that society might not change dramatically. But you know, sometimes changes are slow and sometimes they accumulate, accumulate and then explode. Who knows how it'll turn out.

Dear Louigi, thanks for raising these interesting points. Please find my response. I’ll try to be brief, but I will likely fail at that. You raise a valid point about finding inspiration in other people’s work. This is indeed an important aspect in creative disciplines. Inspiration is necessary to move ahead as a culture. Also in science, to take one’s field of study a step further, basing oneself on the work of predecessors is necessary. That’s why I think new, more flexible forms of copyright like Creative Commons are very worthwhile. However, there is a difference between copying and inspiration. Scientists look down on plagiarism. However, I agree with you that a zone of discomfort exists where the two meet. When does inspiration become copying? There are undoubtedly many cases where inspiration was stifled by strict application of copyright. Likewise, there are many cases of people getting rich unjustly by copying the work of someone else. Therefore, and I feel that we will have to agree to disagree here, I think that protection of creativity/creative works is necessary when one makes a creative work that requires a prior investment (as with movies, games, but also with some products of my girlfriend the designer or my colleague the writer). When artists, designers or photographers work in commission, there of course is no problem with protection of creativity. The commission itself becomes then becomes the enabler for making creative works. However, when one makes creative goods as an investment, having some sort of ownership over that product is vital in recouping that investment. Making many copies and selling them at a fraction of the investment cost is a way to do so without a super-rich Maecenas, the way most art was produced before the arrival of means to mass produce. However, doing so requires some ownership over one’s works to prevent counterfeiting. Otherwise, it would be all too easy to copy or reverse-engineer the product and offer the same good without the investment.
And your final point: of course you are right that all major change begins small. Therefore, it is of vital importance that you continue with developing and articulating your ideas. Society can only move ahead when critical thinkers like you periodically examine the basic concepts on which norms, rules and routines are based. However, you’ll have to excuse us if we keep our interest in how copyright copes in the digital environment (obviously not great, as I think is an observation we all share).