Key points 4 and 5:
"Myth No. 4: Downloading a song illegally is just like stealing it from a store.
This old chestnut has been bandied about quite a bit in the past five years, but that doesn't make it true. CDs are physical things, and copyright is an abstract right. As Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote (somewhat obliquely) in 1985, "[copyright infringement] does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud...The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use." There you have it: Infringing on copyright is materially different from stealing physical CDs, according to the highest court in the land (the "thief" in question was acquitted of theft in the case in question, Dowling v. United States). While not definitive, Blackman's statement shows that there is substantial doubt as to whether copyright infringement should be equated with outright theft.
Myth No. 5: Every infringing download represents lost sales.
The labels love to recite this statistic in various forms, but anyone with an ounce of common sense can tell you that just because someone was willing to download something for free, it doesn't mean they would have bought the song on an album. Most downloaders grab lots of stuff they would never, in a million years, plunk down their hard-earned money for. Therefore, those downloads do not represent lost sales, no matter what the RIAA's public relations team tells the papers.
"
because we all know by now, the recording industry has lost exactly one bazillion dollars due to mp3 piracy...
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