It might be wise to footnote that burning CD's/DVD's of most music, movies, etc is a grave sin. Burning rosary CDs or old (public domain) movies is fine but I think we can all admit that is not the majority of what is being "burnt" by the general public.

Burning rosary CDs or old (public domain) movies is fine but I think we can all admit that is not the majority of what is being "burnt" by the general public.

I'm personally offsetting that trend as I burn literally hundreds of CDs on my PC and none of them are illegal.  :smile:

So if a company spends $100,000 in salaries, fees, equipment to put together a pamphlet which they hope to sell millions of at $2.50 each, would it be a mortal sin to pocket one of them if you were touring the company's print shop?  Would you be stealing A) $100,000 (the cost of producing the pamphlet, from beginning to end), B) $15,000 (whatever the legal max. penalty is for shoplifting/piracy) or C) $2.50?

Common sense tell me $2.50.

If you steal a 60 cent apple from the store, is it a mortal sin because the company spent tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars developing that hybrid? Not at all.

As for the legal penalty, first of all I doubt that $250,000 is the "normal everyday fine for burning a CD." You make it sound like people grudgingly pay that fine every day, just like they pay parking tickets. Since you have an amount handy, perhaps you could cite your sources and give more detail.

But even if that were the penalty -- Yes, we have to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's", but sometimes Caesar has it completely wrong as to what is grave and what isn't. In a *Catholic world* mortal sins would be punished the strongest. But doesn't Caesar do absolutely nothing these days about abortion, co-habitation, divorce, raising kids without the Faith, etc.? And those are all VERY grave sins. Sad though it be, we are NOT in a Catholic world. And "Caesar" has had it wrong many times in history. Under the Roman emperors, one of the gravest offenses was to worship Christ!

Anyhow, I think you should quote someone with a bit of weight if you're going to say you're liable for the production cost FOR A SINGLE CD. That doesn't even make sense. If they will give you "a piece of that production cost" for $15, then the piece is worth $15. CDs don't come with rights to re-sell it, so the production cost is not relevant -- ever.

Now what you said would be correct if you stole NOT JUST A CD, but actually made copies of the CD and sold them. That would be like stealing the money they spent on production right out from under them! You'd try to be "the publisher" even though the publisher spent hundreds of thousands to produce the book/CD/DVD.

My previous post comes from a traditional priest. Not just a traditional priest, but the top of his class in Moral Theology (he is a real "brain")

Matthew

What do you mean?

One has to distinguish between mortal and venial sins. A sin is either mortal, or it isn't.

Protestants also downplay the distinction -- which can have one of two effects. A) They won't sin at all, just to be sure, and B) They will end up in mortal sin if they can't stop sinning altogether -- they might get discouraged.

Even the Bible talks about greater and lesser offenses.

I think the truth is always healthy, whether it condemns or consoles us.

Matthew

Far be it from me to defend the illegal copying of music or software (I'm a music publisher AND a computer programmer, so this issue affects me intimately). I just want to clarify some points.

First of all, I think we need to distinguish between two different crimes that we are mixing up:

A) Stealing a CD (physically or through burning/downloading a copy)
B) Piracy (stealing intellectual property, and re-distributing it)

If someone stole one of my Chant CDs, and I had the best lawyer in the world in my back pocket, I would go after them for: $12.99. Why? Because if they paid $12.99 in the first place, they would not only be blameless in my eyes, but a good customer!

$12.99 can't be the difference between a virtuous act and a Mortal sin. It simply isn't that much money.

Anyhow, if the same person stole a CD (or even PURCHASED IT from me for $12.99) and proceeded to re-sell it, THEN they would be liable for the whole value of the intellectual property, since they would be stealing my very livelihood. That would be piracy, not petty theft.

Burning a CD has to be a weaker sin than stealing a nice shrunk-wrapped copy off the shelf at Best Buy. There is less scandal, the final product isn't as nice -- it's worth much less, doesn't have a color insert, etc.

I also disagree with your theory that when someone steals a CD, they become part of a "larger crime" of stealing X number of CDs total -- which defraud the artist of serious money (from loss of fame, revenue, concert revenue, etc.) Perhaps the aggregate big picture IS just that -- but how can 600,000 people  "share" a mortal sin? Whose soul does it go on? Let's face it -- most people illegally burn a CD so they can put it in their CD player and listen to it -- not so Britney Spears can waste away on the street in abject poverty. Most people don't have that deep a grasp on the "big picture".

Many sins would be more grave if we humans could see clearly the consequences they would bring about. But most people (myself included) have a hard time seeing that copying a single CD for personal use will lead to severe poverty for the artist involved. The illegal CD copier really DOES think, "It's only a single CD. It's not going to kill them."

If I spend 9 months on a game and release it free on the Internet, it is worth 0.00. If I had spent the same 9 months working on an accounting package worth $199 each, then that's what my work would be worth. I might be able to write esoteric software (for example, live auction management software) in a week's time that is worth $2000 a copy -- I could charge that if that's what the market would bear. And that's what the software would be worth per copy. If someone stole a copy, they would be liable for $2,000 -- even if it only cost me 40 hours to write the whole thing and I'd already sold 20 copies. So I think the total production cost is irrelevant unless it's a case of actual piracy (theft of intellectual property = re-selling an artist's work giving them nothing in return)

As far as I know, that $250,000 penalty has never been levied against a shoplifter stealing a CD from the shelves. It's only for those who make songs or CDs available for download, or those who produce and sell a stolen CD.

Sincerely,

Matthew

Yes, obviously the above was a sarcastic comment (and kinda harsh). My point is there is a perfectly noble reason for wanting to burn discs, that is, to make backup copies of music, movies, software, etc. that you legally own (although the music, movie, software, etc. industries would like to deny you your legal right to make backups, as evidenced by their previous attempts to ban the selling of recordable media). Also, it's not like Matthew was advocating piracy. He was simply pointing out a free alternative to a proprietary media burning software, Nero. Anyway, that's enough from me.