> We're getting into semantics here, but theft as a philosophical, moral, and legal concept has a very specific meaning. You can only steal "rivalrous" goods, which harms the stolen-from party for obvious and intuitive reasons that anyone can understand.

I'm trying to find a reason why you've got such an elaborate and specific definition of theft (when english dictionaries certainly don't include it) but when you use words that have clear meanings in the space of economics you're willing to stretch them to metaphorical limits (e.g., your use of "commodities" and "commodification" to suggest outright copies of existing goods are good for consumers.

> It's only recently in human history that we've begun to assign rightful ownership to intangible non-rivalrous things such as ideas, inventions, designs, words, and the like. And that came about not for moral reasons so much as for utilitarian reasons, e.g. perhaps we will incentivize more creation if we give creators temporary monopolies over profiting from their intangible ideas.

This isn't true. The idea of misrepresenting other people's work as your own as theft (in particular: music and writtne work) is an old concept with examples in literature long before the advent of copyright law. It's pretty trivial.

> Of course, any copyright owner is financially incentivized to extend their ownership for as long as possible, and so thanks to lobbying from companies like Disney, copyrights now extend dozens of times longer than their original length. And we also have new propaganda terms like "intellectual property" which were intentionally created to get people to begin thinking of ideas as property, and copyright violation as theft, and immoral. Unfortunately it seems to be working.

The infinite extension of copyright in the US is a bad thing, I agree. But there is a difference between "infinity is bad" and "allowing people to be rewarded for their work in a society that starves them if they don't work" that clearly exists. You seem to agree that design and art is work.

But if we're going to level the accusation of "goalpost shifting", it sure seems like a goalpost shift that you're trying to draw a line from "infinite Disney copyright" to "Amazon has created an inferior but vaguely similar looking product and used their historically unprecedented and immense capitalization and ability to manipulate the retail market to capture the profits a small vendor was growing."

> But it's not theft. Nobody is actually being deprived of any goods. Nobody is actually "stealing" any designer's work from their shelves and drawers.

Theft is not exclusively limited to "goods" in any framework I can find. Money is not a "good" but stealing money is clearly theft.

> This is 100% about people wanting to be granted exclusive legal access to profit.

Well yes, because this is what they're required to do in a capitalist society that says they starve if they don't work. And since we're at least in agreement that design work, performance and art are work with concrete (if relative) value, this is most folks only option. A few hundred years ago, you might have said "access to patronage" instead of "exclusive access to profit".

> Which is fine if they want to lobby for that, but using words like "theft" is inaccurate and propaganda, and injects a moral component where there is none.

If it means they're materially damaged, isn't that the immoral bit? We can surely argue for moral and immoral theft and there is a rich tradition of this (starting from the most basic, "if a starving family steals a loaf of bread from a store to feed their kids, that is theft but is it immoral"

Oh also:

> We must be talking past each other, because I sincerely don't understand why you think I'm arguing this. Where am I saying that people shouldn't have this choice? I've said the opposite.

You literally just did this. You just said:

> I'm arguing that it's not actually immoral (see above). Thus, by process of elimination, this is either a legal matter or no matter at all.

Not only is this begging the question, but it's a false ... uh... trichotomy? That's a word now.

Skipping ahead:

> No, not at all. I'm arguing that it's not actually immoral (see above). Thus, by process of elimination, this is either a legal matter or no matter at all.

You were arguing it shouldn't be immoral and using as evidence of this that it is not illegal. Your definition of "theft" is curiously limited, but I think this is all a distraction. Ask anyone on the street if misrepresenting a musician's work as your own without permissions is moral. You will get an unambiguous answer.

Given how obvious this value is in our culture, your presentation of it as "not theft" seems... well... it stands out.

> Yes, the point. Nobody is saying capitalism should be unrestricted. In my view, capitalism is created by restrictions. It's all about restrictions.

This is not a well-supported view by history, economics or the philosophies underlying economics.

> It's an attempt to limit the ways that people and companies can profit so that they're forced to do so in ways that create value for consumers, e.g. innovation, lower prices, easier access.

This is not even faintly the definition of capitalism. Its also an attempt to define it by intent which is... a strange anthropomorphism.

> But no, I don't support unrestricted capitalism. Quite the opposite. In fact, I think the term "unrestricted capitalism" is basically nonsensical and an oxymoron.

I'm sorry, you're strictly wrong here. "Unrestricted capitalism" has a clear definition. It means "the deciding political and social factor is the accumulation and exercise of capital." This is only a few steps removed from, "the deciding political and social factor is the blessings of our Lord and Savior upon the King's family."

The thing you're discussing is interesting, but it's difficult to parse because you're muddling it with a lot of pre-existing terms in this space.