On the train on the way to work this morning, I heard a passenger having a loud business-related argument cell phone call. I then heard another passenger, obviously in response to the disturbance of the guy on the phone, start spouting off his observations on how "it's no wonder our kids don't know the difference between inside behavior and outside behavior". Out of the blue, it seems, he ended his observation with: "and it's no wonder our kids are stealing music off the Internet". Huh? WTF?

"Stealing" is one of those pirated words, as our friends the Word Pirates say:

Stealing: Some organizations like to say that copyright infringement is "stealing." This is so wrong it hurts. If you steal, then the person you stole from no long has what you stole. If a person were to steal a Britney Spears song, then she would no long be able to sell albums with that song. Copying music doesn't take anything away from anyone.

The main thing I want to say about all of this, which has been said well by many other people, is that the act of downloading music usually looks nothing like an act of theft. In most cases at least, it is not like there is store where you buy MP3's online, and people are going there and finding ways of taking the MP3's without paying for them.

Anyway, this is all a segue to pointing you to another great rant from Tim Oren, this one called Eating the RIAA's lunch (via Kevin Marks).

Note: here are other links I recently posted to more great rants from Tim Oren and Kevin Marks on this subject.