what the fellow who wrote the book, C-NET editor van Buskirk, as well as Justice Blackmun and everyone else chanting this 'not theft' mantra are getting wrong IS:

the copy made produces an 'on-demand' listening opportunity (and indeed MULTIPLE opportunities!), previously not available to the copy-maker-taker (CMT), that satisfies the CMT's desire to experience that intellectual property without having paid the copyright-holder (CRH) for that opportunity.

So what that no physical object was taken or anybody deprived of their own usage of that object??? It is the experience opportunity that is taken, along with the right of the CRH to receive payment for providing that experience. Whether the CMT chooses to experience it or not, matters not. If you stole a record, it isn't really theft if you never listened to it?

You step up to a jukebox and kick it or lick it until it plays the song you want (if that were possible), because you have a bought-and-paid-for copy AT HOME? You walk up to a box-office window to see a show and expect to get in free because you have it on DVD AT HOME?

NO, you PAY for the ON-DEMAND experience. If you don't have THAT SPECIFIC COPY IN YOUR POSSESSION WHEN YOU WANT TO EXPERIENCE IT, YOU MUST THEN BUY THAT EXPERIENCE THERE FROM WHOEVER CAN PROVIDE IT, or do without. People DLing songs for free that they otherwise would have to buy to hear is NOT "FAIR USE". CMT deprives the CRH an opportunity to satisfy CMT's desire and receive payment from CMT. To copy and not pay CRH IS THEFT. Justice Blackmun, and all the whiners are SIMPLY MISTAKEN in their assumptions.

CMT, like sneaking under the canvas at the circus to see the freakshow that this battle has brought back from the darkest jungles of Brazil and the sewers of Paris, without paying the barker.
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[This message has been edited by ed323 (edited 09-29-2003).]

EdX.iuma.com http://www.soundclick.com/40LOVE http://www.soundclick.com/EdX