Haha, I should'nt have formed my answer as a question in response to you wondering why stock is not taxed like property is. What I wanted to point out was that property needs infrastructure to be useful hence a tax and stock, well, not so much.

So you're suggesting to tax the increases in your stock to help society's infrastructure?

You don't need all the infrastructure (paid for by property taxes) to maintain stock?

So don't take out a mortgage to get into a house or keep renting. So how does the wealthy avoid paying real estate taxes?

would you have a job if the ignorant users knew how anything actually works? this is so sad.

great, now they can hire somebody to do the work for them while they spend time with the family.

i think there's just an absurd level of pedantry on your part. when they say taxed, it means the retailer collecting tax on it. but go ahead, educate us.

i figured as much from you. we're not debating about the law. we're debating about the facts with which we can apply the law.

i quite understand the concept of sally's property (paper bound with cover without regard to what's printed on them) and her rights to its possession. how does that equate in the digital world? how do you embody this digital illegal copy and juxtapose that with a physical property to drive your point across that tom can't posses sally's property. at what point did it become property and at what point did it become sally's and at what point did it become illegal? what happened to "IT" now that it's in tom's hard drive?

within that definition you link to it says: "The so-called bad leechers are those running specially modified clients which avoid uploading data. These clients are quite common..." so in the context of your question "And leeching is not distributing?" the answer would be yes.

i don't understand the concept of "even the copyright owners can't legally possess it." that may be true if we're talking about a physical movie package (box & disc) you buy from a sidewalk vendor. not so much when we're talking about a compilation of 1 & 0's transmitted through the pipes and reassembled on MY hard drive.

does this mean that when i pay for a book in a bookstore that i am not necessarily paying for the right to a copy? from your argument, until i am sued, or not, i can't really know what i just paid for? how about when i walk in the bookstore and the bookstore sent me away with a copy for 0 dollars? have i obtained it "legally"? how do i know if material i'm getting from a torrent is legal or not? can it be distinguished? can it be distinguished before i completely download and view the material? are all torrent materials illegal?

and what is the meaning of the word leeching? making a claim on the basis of "AFAIK" is quite weak AFAIK don't you think?

was this because back then not all doorposts had doors? curiousity hit me when i saw doorposts and not door.

If you have a one dimensional mind then yes, maybe the measure of success is money. But along the way to "success", what did you lose? Do you consider yourself successful now? Great.