In The Netherlands it's legal to make copies of copyrighted works of art for personal practice, study and use. At the same time, I cannot walk into the Rijksmuseum and take home Rembrandt's De Nachtwacht.
I understand artist's desire to equate "illegal" downloading of music with theft, but it the comparison just doesn't work. When you steal something, you take something from the original owner, who doesn't have the thing anymore. When you download something, a copy is made, and the original owner loses nothing. Perhaps in the case of artists, they lose a sale, but I wouldn't even argue that people who download music would buy all they download when they couldn't download it.
It's a complex issue, but I believe that the current copyright laws are completely inadequate for this day and age.
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