For those of you interested in the history of intellectual property, copyright, and its "evolving principles", may I suggest the book Common as Air: Revolution,

For those of you interested in the history of intellectual property, copyright, and its "evolving principles", may I suggest the book Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership. http://www.amazon.com/Common-Air-Revolution-Art-Ownership/dp/0374223130 http://www.amazon.com/Common-Air-Revolution-Art-Ownership/dp... Also, since we love hypothetical situations, how about this: I create a replication device that can create an identical copy of any physical object. Walking down the street, I stop in front of your brand new Lexus and make a copy of the car for myself. I then drive away in the replica. Now, did I steal your car? Is that larceny? Or did I violate some other law? What if it was a Model T manufactured in 1908? Of course, if new laws need to be created/revised/abrogated to treat IP violations as acts of larceny, clearly the original laws were never intended to equate the two. Otherwise, additional legislation would not be necessary (DMCA, ACTA, etc...)