The moral thing to do is to pay your share of that if you make a copy, even if the copy itself doesn’t cost anything.
i don't need to disagree to disbelieve. i do disagree, but without establishing your justification for this claim, it's kind of hard to argue against it.
The justification was that creating things has a cost, even if a copy doesn't, and that we should distribute that cost as fairly as possible among the people benefiting from the creation.
I pay taxes, those were used to pay the people who build the bridge. And yes, taxes should be fair. If it's a private bridge then the owners have every right to demand a fee for crossing it.
Yes, of course. They created the design, it cost them time and money, you want to use it, so you should pay part of those costs. Or to put it differently: You both use the design, why should they be the ones to pay for its creation, and not you?
Who says you can only owe something if you take something away first?
Think about how rent works. The building or appartement will still be there, loose value over time and need repairs whether you live there or not, yet you still owe the owner rent if you do.
your might owe under almost any circumstance, but almost all of them have to drop with a mutually agreed contract or transfer of property. what circumstance do you think created the debt here? and what if someone walks across my front yard bridge? do they owe the engineers too? it's just silly.