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Ok let’s rewind the clock and say JK Rowling has finished writing Harry Potter but she hasn’t published it yet.

And she says: I’m going to publish and sell this book on condition that anyone who buys it not distribute it further. They can read it but they can’t redistribute it without my permission.

Those are the terms of publication. It’s a contract. And anyone who buys the book is then bound by the contract.

She would not publish the book otherwise.

She created a value and she wants to trade that value for something specific (money in exchange for reading, not redistributing).

Others are free to take her up on the offer or ignore her.

Okay so without referring to current legislation. I understand that it is currently illegal, just like tax evasion, but that won't go far in persuading me that it isn't right.

Because she owns the copyright.

Why am I violating her rights?

agreed

Your perspective on whether she loses anything really doesn’t matter. That’s the same even for cold hard property. If I exchange your tic tacs for $1,000,000 without your consent, you only win, you didn’t lose, but it’s still theft.

You’re violating her rights: specifically, her copyright. That’s an aggression.

Why? I don't get that. She's not losing anything.

Yes.

Credit is a different matter from copyright. Plagiarism and copyright infringement aren’t the same thing.

Am I committing aggression against JK Rowling if I pirate a PDF copy of Harry Potter?

I should be clear though that it is only right for the law to interfere with property to protect others’ rights. It’s not right for the law to confiscate your money to collect taxes, say.

true!

So… the law extending to others’ property is nothing new and not totalitarian in and of itself.

exactly

Right, like preventing you from murdering them.

Maybe? Kinda? Not sure.

You don't get to use your knife to aggress on others, that much is clear. So perhaps this can be understood as a right of others to do certain things with your property.

Some people abuse the letter of the law to violate the spirit of the law, but that doesn’t mean the corresponding laws are bad per se. Those are problems, errors that can be corrected.

I can also think of ways this could be misused.

I'm not sure, seriously. I'm open to suggestions.

There's lots of things that I think people shouldn't do yet should still be legal.

So if someone publishes a blog post falsely but believably accusing you of being a pedophile and then all your business partners stop talking to you and you lose all your money and your friends and family ghost you, you wouldn’t want to have any legal recourse?

I'm not sure it's a good thing.

But it isn’t scarce in a physical sense.

Reputation is scarce in the sense that it’s limited.

Take someone’s reputation. That isn’t a ‘scarce’ thing yet it’s a good thing there are laws against defamation.