Well, somebody read my wall of text after all! Here's another!

> No - labour is the work, effort, and time - and charging twice is fraud.

I don't understand. How are you charging twice if you ask two people to compensate you for the value you provided? Value is everything. Or do you think people should be paid for their "work, effort, and time" for just digging holes up and filling them up again?

> McCarthyism and FUD. Also, when you watch pornography, the terroists win.

I'm guessing you haven't lived in a communist regime, but know anyone who did? I know some from ex-communist countries like Romania, old USSR, some current day states in India, etc. They all have a deep horror of communism. There is a reason it fails hard.

> Money is whatever I accept as payment and that does not need a government (a government of one is hardly a government).

The point was, information has value of varying, contextually-dependent amounts, either inherently or artificially through monopolies, and uncontrolled duplication can have very bad economic effects. Money is just one example. Copying information is not just copying bits. Ask yourself why printing money is restricted. Ask yourself why bitcoin works the way it does.

> That works both ways: charging for ideas has distorted access to knowledge via the Internet.

Distorted, how? If something gives you value, be it physical or intellectual, charging for it is in no way "market distortion". There are various distortions that can come into play, but they are exactly the same as with physical goods.

> You might claim that without copyright there would be less "stuff" on the Internet, but there is nothing supporting that.

You really should talk to some musicians. For many, to make a living, they have to work a day job and/or do live shows (which is not an option for many), which takes time that they could instead used to create new stuff. If you searched for threads on this topic on HN, you'll hear this lament frequently from people who actually are musicians. So yes, there is support for that.

> Humans are creative by nature whereas humans would not naturally clean toilets - and thus should be paid for it.

No, humans are not creative by nature, some are. And of those, vanishingly few are good at it. For every billion of amateur artist videos on YouTube, you only get one phenomenon like Bieber(!!)

What humans are, however, is greedy and willing to take advantage of others the moment they think they can get away with it. Ask yourself why we have so many laws.

BTW, do you like coding? In that case, I'd guess your a coder by nature. I know a few MBAs who'd love to get their world changing ideas implemented for free.

> Remove the part where you call people who share their access to information freely "dishonest," and you have simply repeated the childhood moral "knowledge is power" (and "sharing is caring").

I don't really get this point... Are you saying people paying for content are stupid?

And if sharing is caring, why don't you share your bank account details? Just information after all.

> Profiting implies selling, which is not the case with simple/private copying - unless you mean profiting abstractly, as in increased capacity for thought, then yes - and in which case you have paraphrased me well.

I meant selling. Copyright law specifically applies to distribution, not downloading. So you agree "increased capacity of thought" is "profiting"! Wow, that sure sounds like you're deriving value from something, and should maybe, you know, kinda, like, sorta want to pay for that benefit if remuneration was asked for? No? Not the least bit? You just want people to put in labor to create new information so that you can benefit from it without paying? Simply because you can get away with it?

Hmm, I can guess why communism failed.

And going back to tzs' point, pirating Iron Man 3 increases "capacity of thought"? Really?

> It's almost as though the only reason people pay their ISP is for the ability to make copies.

It's almost as if you're deliberately trying to avoid addressing my point that information is more than just bits and making copies can have economic consequences.