Web world of law online

"Stealing the intellectual property of others is no different from any other form of thievery."

That strikes me as not being absolutely true. Taking a copy of a piece of software does not deny others its use as taking a car does. There also seem to be a business models which allow the free distribution of software. I can download my favorite web browser (Opera) as many times as I wish without paying a penny. I can also download other browsers (Mozilla Firebird or Netscape) free of charge. There's free media playing software such as Real Player and Quick Time. There's free office software such as Abiword and OpenOffice Suite.

All of which would seem to indicate that there is a big difference between stealing even one Yugo and making several copies of a piece of software. Not that I am championing theft of intellectual property but by its very nature this particular type of theft makes something more available rather than less. Of course, the creation of value in intellectual property depends on some sort barrier to the availability of the intellectual property. As these barriers become more and more artificial¹ - in response to the easy availability of information and its derivatives thru technology such as VCR's, computers, high-speed internet, writeable CD's/DVD's, &cetera - it becomes harder and harder to convince someone that he should pay $25 for the newest CD (for the one good song on it) or $60 for a computer game when he can pick up either for free using Limewire.



¹ The most frustrating of these for me - while not exactly concerning intellectual property - was when the MLB made radio stations stop broadcasting baseball games over the internet. I used to listen to a Red's game every couple of days on Ohio or Kentucky stations which carried them. This obviously helped baseball by keeping alive interest in baseball in locations where there is no nearby pro team. Since I moved to Virginia and MLB cut me off I've not been able to root for my team and there is no team which is rooted for locally (despite whatever delusions the owners of the Orioles might have as they fight to keep a team from being in D.C./Northern Virginia). Of course, I could go to MLB's site and pay to listen but I refuse to pay for an artificial barrier set up by MLB and basically don't pay much attention to baseball anymore except for the Little League World Series, parts of games in the MLB playoffs if the game is good, and I try to go to a couple of the AAA Braves games in Richmond each year.