[xzins]

So that makes it ok to take their music without paying?

[Revolting cat!]

You seem to have accepted someone else's (RIAA's in this case) definition of what constitutes theft. It's hard to argue with the authority of an established institution and choir of the media parroting the party line. But as someone argued above (and you failed to address) characterizing sharing as "theft" is dubious. Some of us live by a commandment to think for ourselves and make up our own minds. Sharing musical recordings is no more theft than listening to a song playing on a jukebox that a stranger fed with his coins!

[wideawake]

So that makes it ok to take their music without paying?

In point of fact I've never downloaded mp3s of music that weren't first offered to me by the artist.

But I still think that a recording is not intellectual property. Writing a song is one thing. Performing a song is another. If you sell me a recording of a song, I am free to do whatever I wish with my property.

I am uncomfortable with the notion that if my sister borrows one of the mix CDs I've burned from my (storebought) CD collection to listen to, she or I have committed a crime.

And that happened just last week when I loaned her my car for the afternoon.

[eno_]

So that makes it ok to take their music without paying?

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: The legal atrocities of the DMCA drain the legitimacy out of arguments that it is not OK. The history of music indicates that damage, on a societal scale, will be minimal, and there will probably be benefits that outweigh any damage. So, yes, it is OK.