> Courts don't operate on technicalities. The intent is pretty much all that matters, as long as you prove that someone intended to pirate stuff, doesn't matter what rube goldberg machine they use to actually pull it off.
You are absolutely right.
This is what enabled prosecuting the founders of the pirate bay, among other things.
The fact that files are hosted elsewhere, mangled, encrypted, cut in pieces is entirely irrelevant to the court.
Hoping that a technicality gets you off the hook is exercise in shortsightedness.
Life and the universe don't owe us anything. This concepts of "deserve" comes from some monotheistic religions and it's been called Just World Fallacy.
> I seriously doubt that most people today would feel like someone with a 2nd grade education or even an 8th grade education deserves a job
Thankfully, a large number of people in the world support the idea of feeding the hungry in a way or another.
Spot on. Many companies pushing "secure" applications conveniently forget to warn users about the false sense of security.
The cryptography might be flawless, but everything else...
> having the sense of being needed and being useful
Often, it can be the opposite. Many people would describe their daily tasks as useless or marginally useful for humanity, while finding meaning in unpaid volunteering.
Engineers are never fired? Not even when the company shuts down?
> If the company goes bankrupt, will the engineer be willing to bail the company out?
Sometimes yes, with their (and mine) taxes.