The problem with defining copyright infringement as stealing is one of reality. At its essence, the market works by supply and demand. Copyright is basically th

The problem with defining copyright infringement as stealing is one of reality. At its essence, the market works by supply and demand. Copyright is basically the government imposing a monopoly on a piece of work to limit the supply. That goes against the principles of a free market on so many levels and the only reasonable argument for it would be ... for the flourishing of the public domain. Can you make that argument right now? Of course you can't. Otherwise, if something is so cheap to copy, to build upon, why should it be illegal to do so? Technological advances happen leading to the destruction of business models like all the time. Copyright is basically legislature that protects the incumbents. Let me put it another way - if a machine was invented that basically materialized food out of thin air and poor people from Africa would copy the design, built it and produced food with it to feed themselves, would that be considered stealing from the inventor? What if they stole the food in question? What if the food they stole was produced by a machine out of thin air? Maybe the real problem is that our current economic and business models don't really work anymore ;-)