The idea of intellectual property itself is the problem in my opinion. It's not property in the way that we create analogies to, i.e. it's not like the car I have sitting outside right now nor the painting I made.

I own the car, it is my property, if you steal it you've deprived me of its use. If you damage it, I have to pay to have it repaired. If I do not maintain it it will no longer work, as well, it will on its own slowly deteriorate over time at which point I must replace it or live without.

Nor is intellectual property like that painting I produced. That painting took serious time to create and only one was created. I imagined it, and I painted it. However, someone can freely re-create something like it for themselves, selling it, however, would be considered forgery if they tried to pass it off as their own idea.

Digital though is a whole new medium. There are no forgeries or deprivation in digital medium. It is an exact replica of the original in every way and is never destroyed. "Piracy" as we use the term on the internet isn't even trying to take ownership of or steal the 'property' only redistribute it. People who are 'pirating' are also not trying to make money off of it (megaupload et al. are making money off of the service the 'pirates' host on not the 'property') but provide it (altruistically?) to others, often with the stipulation of "you like it you buy it".

Intellectual Property laws need to take a new medium into consideration, we can't just think of it in analogies to the physical world. It's not the physical world. Before the printing press we never imagined that books could be distributed en masse. That created a new type of property, however still restricted on production. The internet has created another, free production, and we/those in power need to realise that restructuring the internet in order to maintain a poor analogy is not the solution. We are a society of Remix, the internet allows us to this better than ever before. Why should we be squelching those who only want to continue the remix?

I understand many have heard all this before, but it sometimes feels like no one is listening.

As for MPAA/RIAA being the looters; there is no theft of digital products when looked at objectively---only when comparing to the physical medium and when creating analogies for explanation. We've already determined many file sharers purchase the products in addition to sharing. All throughout history we've traded what we love to each other, now we get to copy it to each other. Anecdotally it seems as though the property that is shared and not paid for wouldn't have been paid for in the first place.

Then here comes a large group of distributors claiming they represent artists (which, at some points they do) playing bully on the soccer field. Finding people who weren't the original distributors of their digital mind-share, turning them up-side-down, and ruining their lives by taking as much money from them as the courts will allow. A file-shared 'property' is not removing money from the pockets of the artist. It may stop money from being placed in their hand initially, however increases their audience. How many artists have people discovered solely because of a shared file?

Who's really depriving others of a livelihood? The MPAA/RIAA with obscene lawsuits with awards that can rarely be paid back or file-sharers increasing the audience of the artist/owner at the expense of direct compensation?