| 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. |