If I download and then upload a song, that's copyright infringement. If I walk into WalMart and shoplift a CD, that's stealing. WalMart has been deprived of their property. In neither case has the record company been deprived of anything.
In the former, the record company may have been deprived of some of the money you would have spent if you had actually bought the music legally (whether a CD in Wal-Mart or iTunes, etc.).
Actually, this is an interesting matter. If hypothetically you always bought physical CDs and never used iTunes, then given that large stores buying lots of CDs has some overflow (e.g. Wal-Mart can't know exactly how many people will buy some album, and so will end up with extras in stock) then you could argue that if you were to instead download an album for free, you actually weren't depriving the record company of any money (since all you've done is cause one more album to sit on Wal-Mart's shelves rather than leave Wal-Mart's shelves, and Wal-Mart has already paid Warner when it bought the CDs in bulk). However, in that case you're depriving Wal-Mart of money (by not buying the CD, and by causing it to sit on a shelf, which apparently costs some money), though it would be tough to argue that that money is rightfully Wal-Mart's. Nevertheless, you have clearly violated copyright.
On the other hand, if you always bought music on iTunes, then in this case since your money goes to Apple and then royalties from that automatically go to the record companies (full disclosure: I do not have certainty that this is how it actually works, but this is how I think it works), then you are in fact depriving the record company of money it should rightfully get.
Plus, WalMart owns the CD, Warner does NOT own the music. In the US, this "property" belongs to all of us; the "content creator" has a limited time monopoly on its publication, not ownership.
Yes, but Warner owns the right to copy the music (fair use excepted). By copying the music herself, Jammie deprived Warner of its rights, as well as money which is rightfully Warner's. The fact that Warner is a large corporation and probably has "way too much money" and probably Does Evil does not legitimize doing wrong against it.
If I steal a CD and get caught I have a misdemeanor criminal charge and a few hundred dollar fine, but if I infringe copyright and get caught it costs $50k. This is better than before, but still very bad.
I agree, the damages in both cases should be comparable, and the solution is not increasing the damages from a theft of a physical CD.
