According to your values, is illegally downloading a song, TV show, or movie immoral?

[Ms. Toad]

95. If the song is no longer being sold anywhere, then ask permission of the owner of the rights.

The fact that the supply is limited only makes the price the author can charge infinitesimally small compared to the effort required to create it.

I can charge tens of thousands of dollars for the single intricate physical table I craft - because whoever buys it gets the enitre benefit of all of the hours I put into crafting it - and we are used to paying for the entire cost of the hours it required to create it.

If I had to charge a reasonable hourly rate for the novel I write, of which there is a single copy, it would never sell because in order to make a living i might need to charge perhaps $20,000 (a year's work at $10/hour). So my time investment is recouped by selling multiple copies at a lower cost. If you replicate my book for your own personal use, you decrease my ability to recover my costs because I have to bump my costs up for the remaining books I need to sell to cover my time investment - and when I bump my costs up, it makes them harder to sell.

If a book (or song) is no longer in print - you are free to find an existing copy and buy it (under the first resale rights). I'm free to let you make a copy - perhaps because I've made back my investment and I just want to share out of the good of my heart. But it is my choice - not yours.

The point isn't that you are depriving the owner of the object - it is that you are depriving the craftsman of payment for his labor. The only difference is that a physical craftsman is paid by a single sale; the intellectual craftsman typically is paid by making multiple sales.