In the LAT, a level-headed discussion of the semantics and legalities of file-sharing by one of the paper’s editorial page writers, Jon Healy. He notes how the very term “file-sharing” steals a semantic high ground (it’s not “file-stealing“) but points out as well that the simplistic “file-sharing equals theft” equation of the records companies isn’t quite right either*:

[T]here’s a fundamental difference between intellectual property (copyrights, patents, trademarks) and real property (houses, cars, plasma TVs): The latter is tangible and limited in supply, the former is not. “Copyright infringement is not ‘theft’ in the same way that taking a CD from a store is theft,” said Mark Lemley, a copyright expert at Stanford University Law School. “If I take your physical property, I have it and you no longer do. If I copy your song, I have it, but so do you.”

Not a lot here that’s new, just a lucid primer if you’re in the mood for it.

* Hitsville’s position is that file-sharing is stealing, for a reason that Healy doesn’t quite get to. It doesn’t steal someone else’s property; but it unquestionably steals part of the value of it, ranging from a miniscule percentage to, in theory, 100 percent of it. The RIAA’s war on file-sharing is still wrong because it’s destructive and pointless, and the RIAA has no moral high ground in any case because it’s been ripping off artists and consumers for decades. In the end, the pointlessness part of this will become definitive. All the file-sharing and bit torrent networks could be shut down entirely and permanently tomorrow and the net result, say, three years from now, would not appreciably change. The data transfer methods would just evolve, primarily through emailed zip files and the so-called “sneaker net”—i.e., handing a friend 1000 songs on a DVD.