<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On May 20, 2009, at 4:34 PM, Stuart Hamm wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" style="position: static; z-index: auto; "><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><div id="yiv962027645"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="position: static; z-index: auto; "><tbody><tr><td style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; -x-system-font: none;" valign="top">No one's gonna back me?? Don't we all rush out and buy a first edition of GW's new books instead of downloading an illegal copy???<br></td></tr></tbody></table></div></blockquote></td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote></div><br><div>Yeah.</div><div><br></div><div>My own position is that downloading media illegally is some-kind-of-bad (me, I still prefer to buy physical CDs and then rip them to iTunes, so that I have unprotected files which I can then copy to whatever music player I may have in the future that might not be an iPod), but it's not exactly *theft*. Copyright infringement is not, in my mind, the same crime as, say, stealing your TV.</div><div><br></div><div>I do not, however, think there's a one-to-one correspondence between lost sales and illegal downloads. That is, plenty of people download things that they're idly curious about, but nowhere near enough interested in to buy. Now, one can, quite correctly, make the point that they SHOULDN'T OUGHTA BE USING IT then. Fair enough.</div><div><br></div><div>But mainly I was just bringing it up as a counterpoint to Brunians' absolutist Property Rights statement, by pointing out that there are some things which some people consider legitimate property rights, and others do not.</div><div><br></div><div>Adam</div></body></html>