[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Yes, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt illegal piracy. I am not asking about legality, but about morality. Is it wrong to do this? Why or why not?

Technically, you are asking about ethics, not morality; ethics are rules of right and wrong (which is what you are asking); morals are how well those rules are followed. However, this distinction is seldom material, and more people don't get it than do get it, even in professional literature on the subject. I suppose then 'what exactly do those terms mean?' becomes a question of where language gets its meaning: from usage or from some concrete thing out there? I suppose it doesn't really matter - it's mostly a distinction without a difference.

As for what you are asking ... here's a little riddle to add fuel to the fire:

All ethics are absolute. All ethics are arbitrary. All ethics are applied universally.

These aren't actually contradictory, even though they first appear so.

An explanation:
Part 1) All ethics are absolute.
Ethics are rules, by definition. If the rules include a line saying that this situation or that situation or all situations are ethically fuzzy, then (for those rules) this situation or that situation or all situations are ethically fuzzy. Period. That's absolute, even though it leads to relative situations and variable conclusions about particular instances and general cases.

Part 2) All ethics are arbitrary.
If you take any ethic (any ethic at all - it doesn't matter which one or from what ethical system) and ask "why?" (and actually get a response, oc) you get an underlying principal of some kind (e.g. because of this other rule, because of these other rules, because of these principals, because X said so, because that's the way I feel, because that works the best, et cetera). If the response is one of the "because of X" where X is a principal or rule or principals or rules or any combination thereof (including X said so), you can ask "why" again (or an appropriet variant, such as "why should that be important?" for things that are obvious facts, as an example; "why should we follow what he/she/it/they said?" if an entity/group/person/being is referenced; or even "So why should logic matter?" if all else fails). You can repeat this process until one of several things happen: 1: Responses cease to be forthcoming. 2: The responses fall into a loop ("Why A?" "B" "Why B?" "C" "Why C?" "A"). 3: The response becomes one that is obviously arbitrary (e.g. "Because that's the way I feel" "It just is"). 4: The response becomes one of an emotional argument (e.g. "don't you feel that way?").
1 demonstrates that there isn't really a reason (no reason -> arbitrary), or that the responder has had enough of questions (no data one way or another; find a different respondant/starting question). 2 implies arbitrary as such loops are arbitrary (which loop to pick? There are theoretically an infinite number of such loops). 3 is obviously arbitrary by definition. With 4, it should be pointed out that different people/beings/Groups feel different ways; choosing which person's/being's/group's feelings is an arbitrary choice.
As long as case 1 doesn't happen, the ethic is arbitrary. If case 1 happens, there are a few sub-possibilities: a) there is no reason, thus it is arbitrary; b) the respondant doesn't know, and is trusting an arbitrary source; thus the ethic is arbitrary; c) the respondant is just tired of the questions/dead/gone/sleeping/whatever. 1c is just thrown in for completeness; it is rather immaterial. Cases of an eventual 1c are assumed to be arbitrary. I'll leave it up to a potential opponent to argue that it isn't.

Part 3: All ethics are applied universally.
Implicitly or explicitly, everyone has a system of ethics that they univerally apply. Note that an ethical system includes (implicitly or explicitly) how to deal with those who follow a different system (e.g. calling differences wrong or not).

Parts 1 and 2 aren't contradictory: arbitrary refers to the basis of the ethic while absolute refers to the ethic itself. Parts 2 and 3 aren't contradictory: arbitrary refers to the basis of the ethic while 'applied universally' refers to the judging actions and/or people.

Ethics are arbitrary, so when people disagree, debate doesn't cause agreement unless one side (A) can find something in the other side's (B's) ethics of more importance that supports A's Version (also requires that B's ethics include weighing contradictory ethics to rule one out for the situation in question; some ethical systems could allow for contradiction).
Barring that (also barring altering a person's stance by other means), agreement will not be reached on points of contention.

The original question was very clearly only to provoke comments, and so my absolute ruling on it is utterly unimportant, as I have now commented.

Perhaps I should have held off on the explanation in the interest of furthering discussion? Ahh well, it's done.