[barrkel]

Every word you write here is stolen. Every last one of them was created by someone, and you stole them, according to your own mental model, the way you keep using the word "theft". But has that stopped them from being invented? Or has the use of English, it being shared amongst so many peoples of the world, actually increased the number of words?

You have no basis for asserting that culture "services" stop being provided when they are not individually exchanged for cash for every use and reuse. In fact, the vast majority of human history stands as testament to the opposite: works are commissioned by patrons, or financed by performance, or even simply as acts of self-expression.

[donnyg107]

I'm glad you're willing to risk the income of musicians everywhere on this theory of yours. And you know what, I really don't support SOPA, and I know that the system is broken, but it astounds me that so many people on HN will openly claim that it just doesn't make sense to pay for music because "copywrite law is crazy and everything is stolen." You can steal. I don't care if you steal. But know that you're stealing from a person who provided you with their work under the expectation that you would buy it. Frank Ocean released a great mixtape, go download it. But don't act like every artist should just know that their content is effectively free. Think about what you want the internet to be when you stomp all over sale of goods over the internet. This kind of assumption, that information cannot be sold, destroys the internet as much as any piece of legislation would, because it perpetuates the mentality that information is nothing. Don't destroy the internet, and acknowledge that the information is valuable, you just didn't want to pay for it. And if you can't acknowledge that, imagine you're staring you're favorite artist in the face and telling him/her why it doesn't make sense that they expect you to pay for their art.

[barrkel]

It's hard for me to take you seriously when you continue to misuse the words "theft" and "stolen". Intellectual "property" has few of the attributes of property; concepts rooted in exclusive use of something don't work well for things that are intrinsically not limited to single users.

What you really seem to have a problem with, though, is your inability to separate mechanisms from goals. The goal of copyright is to incentivize production. The mechanism is government-enforced monopolies over intangible things which, for legal purposes, are treated as property.

The main problem is that the mechanism is breaking down because citizens are becoming more powerful. They have access to technology that permits copying and distribution. This makes cultural IP less property-like, and more language-like.

The correct response to this is not to make the mechanism more powerful, especially not a response that actively increases the (necessary) tyranny of government over citizenry. The correct response is to create a different mechanism for incentivizing creative work, one that is robust in the face of increasing citizen sovereignty.

I mentioned in another comment here a tax redistributed based on popularity, as measured by fingerprinting playback. That's just one idea.

But when you say that I, or people like me, support theft or stealing, or suggest that artists shouldn't get paid, you're simply wrong; worse, you're deeply misguided in what you're attacking. You are defending the mechanism. You should try standing up for the goal, with the rest of us.