Copying is not theft

It's just "infringing", says Security Focus columnist Mark Rasch, who is "a former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit". However, you can still go to jail for infringement, "even if you just downloaded a single song, so long as the 'value' of the copies made of the work over a six month period exceeds $1,000. So, if you assume that the individual "song" has a value of $2 (one-tenth the cost of the $20 CD), a mere 500 downloads are enough to make you liable. And these downloads don't necessarily have to come from your machine. If another person downloads the song from you, you may be responsible for the downloads that person permits." [This column has also been republished by The Register.]