Juno (2016)

[HurtinMinorKey]

Nobody has a lawful right to listen to a for pay song for free unless it's coming from a source that pays the artist for providing that song for free. Otherwise you're a thief.

In terms of "lawful right" you are correct. When it comes to "moral right" people are less inclined to think that stealing from a mega-corporation that built its empire, in part, upon the backs of slave labor is immoral. That's part of the baggage TR gets from teaming up with Apple. Trent may like to think of Apple, as @WorzelG points out, as high minded artist-engineers, but he'd be a fool (or willfully ignorant) to ignore the other tentacles of Apple when he decides to attach his "art" to their name.

[cashpiles (closed)]

In terms of "lawful right" you are correct. When it comes to "moral right" people are less inclined to think that stealing from a mega-corporation that built its empire, in part, upon the backs of slave labor is immoral. That's part of the baggage TR gets from teaming up with Apple. Trent may like to think of Apple, as @WorzelG points out, as high minded artist-engineers, but he'd be a fool (or willfully ignorant) to ignore the other tentacles of Apple when he decides to attach his "art" to their name.

stealing is also morally wrong.

[HurtinMinorKey]

stealing is also morally wrong.

I'll add that some might call it "illegally reproduced" since nothing physical was actually stolen.

[screwdriver]

I'll add that some might call it "illegally reproduced" since nothing physical was actually stolen.

this is illusory semantics

In terms of "lawful right" you are correct. When it comes to "moral right" people are less inclined to think that stealing from a mega-corporation that built its empire, in part, upon the backs of slave labor is immoral. That's part of the baggage TR gets from teaming up with Apple. Trent may like to think of Apple, as @WorzelG points out, as high minded artist-engineers, but he'd be a fool (or willfully ignorant) to ignore the other tentacles of Apple when he decides to attach his "art" to their name.

I don't disagree with your impression of Apple at all. What interests me is the unstated assumption of the perspective you describe, which is to say that a "moral right" exists in relation to others. In other words, that someone else's (or, in this case, a corporation's) moral fallibility lessens your own moral obligation. To wit: if you accept the premise that "moral rights" exist, do your obligations in relation to that moral right exist only in relation to someone else's? This is not the same as evaluating moral culpability on a scale (i.e. murder is worse than theft) but rather a weird (albeit not impossible) premise that your moral duty to someone else depends on their own morality. (to use an exaggerated example, that murdering in cold blood a murderer is "less bad" than murdering an innocent person.)

Moreover, given that, I assume, we both agree there is no objective morality scale (i.e., neither of us accept a religious text as controlling -- not that that would matter much, given that no religious texts touch on intellectual property), others' "moral rights" exist on a spectrum only relevant to your own perspective.

My own thoughts:
1) You either accept the premise of "intellectual property" or not. If you accept the premise that ideas can be property, you are definitionally importing concepts of property onto them.
2a) Assuming you accept the premise of "intellectual property," the unauthorized use of that property is definitionally theft. It has differences from theft of "real" (meatspace) property, but those differences do not affect the implication/definition of "theft" in this context.
2b) If, however, you do not accept the premise of "intellectual property," you either think 1) ideas should be completely free - i.e., abolish all copyright, patent, etc. laws -- or 2) that "intellectual property" is a misnomer and such concepts are more appropriately defined in another fashion.

I think only way a subjective moral right can enter the equation is with the last category is if you fall into 2(b)(2). If so, I think you have the existential problem of morality to contend with before you even get to any of the other questions. To pick just one of those questions, let's assume that Apple uses truly "slave labor" (which is itself a complicated question to answer) -- is boycotting Apple the best way to liberate those slaves? Or are you valuing your own moral certitude over giving money to the "slaves", however indirectly?

CAVEAT: Pretty buzzed and tired, may not be thinking this through correctly.