"The "limited time" is what makes it not ownership. Your patent is like a rented house -- you have the rights to the house you rented, but you don't own it. "We the people" own the work, the author is simply the tenant"

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That's a tricky one, because in the case of a story you write, unless you sell those rights, your "limited time" ownership is the span of your natural life. To the average person, that's going to seem a lot like ownership. Your analogy also doesn't take into account that the "tenant" built the house. In the case of an author who has written a story, he was the one who actually built the thing. Unless he sells it, it is his to control for the entire span of his life. To most people, that would seem like ownership, and improper use of that material would seem a lot like theft, especially if he was in a position to profit from the use of that material.

As a side note, it's funny that you use a rented house in your analogy. Because based on the idea you've put forward, people don't "own" their homes either.

Consider: Because my mortgage is paid out, I say that I own the house and land. It is mine. However, in truth, the city/state has the ability to take back (annex) that home and land if it feels it is in the best interest of the people. By the standard you set above for copyright/patent, I wouldn't "own" my home either. The people own it, I have simply made a financial arrangement that allows me to use it until such time as the actual owner wants it back. Not sure how most people would feel about that idea... :)

While I would agree that the term "ownership" seems inappropriate to an intangible, the net effect of controlling the publication amounts to the same thing. As the entity who controls the publication of a story, you can limit who reads it, or even prevent everyone from reading it. From that perspective, you "own" it to the extent that it may as well be a diamond locked in a safe - no one can see it or use it unless you open the safe door and allow them access.

For an entity who has essentially "locked their story in a safe" (even if it is a safe that allows a select group of participants access), the act of having someone else access that story without permission would feel very much like theft. At the very least it would feel like a violation of some sort and the victim would be right in requesting assistance in preventing it from happening again and in punishing the violators. Is it right to call the story property? Likely not, but it may be the closest we can come to something the layperson will understand and properly identify as wrong.

That is, of course, assuming you don't believe that all creative work shouldn't become public domain the instant it is created. But that's a whole other argument.

I drive pretty much one handed, positioned at 5 o'clock, just above my knee.

If I need to turn, or something interesting is happening, I might use the other hand at about 10 o'clock. Not sure why folks feel they need two hands with power steering....

Then run the most powerful magnets you can find over the hard drive when you turn it back in. Most IT staff are lazy about this sort of thing. If you report it not working, and you turn it in unable to boot to the OS, they'll just wipe it and put the company standard image back on. No one will be the wiser.

Problem solved.

I'm a big fan of Michael Geist, but I think he's missed it here.

He's talking about declining rates of business software piracy and camcording. But both of these areas have avenues of detection and enforcement. Theaters are on the watch for camcorders (and apparently big bags of M&M's hidden in my wife's purse...), and there are many ways businesses are outed for using pirate software (auditors, whistleblowers, etc...) What the US is complaining about are the infringements where enforcement is lax or non-existent in Canada, specifically music and digitally copied movies (does anyone really watch those awful cam copies?).

When Geist discusses movies, music and video games, he cites growth and sales figures in those industries as evidence that piracy rates are dropping. I'm not convinced. It most likely only shows an improvement in the economy since the economic meltdown of 2008. At any rate, the actual cause cannot be determined from this data alone. This is a classic case of not understanding the idea that correlation does not imply causation. He should know better than to even try this approach.

Canada's laws allow Canadians to pirate whatever they like at will with no fear of repercussions. That absolutely creates a climate that would be considered a haven for pirates. It's great that some are choosing to pay for their IP, but let's not kid ourselves about what it is we have going on here. Citing growth figures in legitimate sales doesn't prove that piracy is on the decrease, it only shows that the industry is doing better.

Funny, and I agree.

Also, if it is intended as a joke, I'm not quite getting it, so I'm going with the idea that it's a mistake.

Your tag should read "For all intents and purposes", not intensive purposes...

We may have evolved past the point where the shareware concept is enough for the average programming company to keep the lights on. :)

That's a whole different kettle of fish. If you want to argue that 'random song selection' on an mp3 player should not warrant protection under IP, that's a different discussion altogether. What we're talking about here is theft of IP for personal use.

Because they don't apply here.

Scarcity laws were designed to work with physical items. Non-physical items that have value cannot be measured in this way.

(BTW, I'm not saying that what these companies do is fair -- I'm just saying that applying scarcity laws to something without a physical presence is idiotic.)

I said nothing of the kind. I said intellectual property should be protected. I don't think copyright in its current form is reasonable and would like to see reform, but I stand fast by my opinion that IP must be protected if we expect to continue to see creative works.

Bittorrent software is designed to allow people to download pirate movies and music. Yes, a very small group of IT folks use it for sharing open source, but the average user doesn't. (I'm surprised you even tried this approach...)