Sounds like an argument slave owners would use. “My plantation can’t make money without free labor!”
Copying information is not the same thing as stealing, let alone forcing people into slavery.
appreciate the important reality check, but I think the parent was just highlighting the absurdity of the original argument with hyperbole.
people are in jail for doing exactly what this company is doing. either enforce the laws equally (!) or change them (whatever that means in late stage capitalism).
Let’s advocate for no one going to prison for scraping information then. Let’s pick the second one where we don’t put more people into prison.
“My private prison can’t make money without more overconvicted inmates!”
How do you think slave owners got bailouts after the 13th amendment was passed and the slaves got freed?
They used that part of the 13th that said “Well, except prisoners, those can be slaves.” Local law enforcement rounded up former slaves on trumped up charges and leased them back to the same plantation owners they were freed from. Only now if they escaped they were “escaped criminals” and they could count on even northern law enforcement returning them. The US is still a pro-slavery country and will be as long as that part of the 13th amendment stands.
