I'm a fan of Mathew Ingram (I even put him on my blog roll) so I don't write this to attack him.  But he's been on a tear regarding p2p for a week or so now and its honestly getting a little ridiculous.

His most recent post quotes an essay by Matt Mason author of "The Pirate's Dilemna: How Youth is Reinventing Capitalism".  The essay vacillates between the dishonest (quoting the story of William Fox while omitting that Mr. Fox fought his battle legally) to the plain offensive (comparing record companies to drug companies that withhold life saving drugs) but the point it makes isn't inaccurate.

The essay's point is that most piracy is actually the sign of an inefficient market.  I don't disagree with that point nor will I defend the record labels in their (up until just recently) utter botching of the digital revolution.  That said, the bone of contention comes when talking about what individuals have the right to do in response to that. 

Here is a quote from Mr. Ingram's post...

I happen to think that Mason is dead right, and that if the music industry had done more innovating (this is a start, but still rather late) and less suing of its customers, artists and labels would both be a lot better off than they are now. Are many downloaders shameless thieves who would never pay for anything anyway? Sure they are. But many more are music fans who are telling the industry through their actions that it’s not giving them what they want, or at least not how they want.

So, "conduct your business as I want you to or I'm just going to steal your product"

Quick Aside: I had a discussion similar to this with Mr. Ingram in his comments and I'd wanted to link to it but I can't find the post for some reason.  But in that discussion he basically said he doesn't feel that file sharing is stealing at all so I wanted to put that out there before going further. 

Let me first say that I don't have a problem with someone who burns a CD and plays it for a friend.  Nor do I even have a problem with someone who sends a music file to an honest friend who they know will buy the CD if they like it.  But if you are in any way giving music to someone who you don't personally know or allowing music to just be taken off your PC (as with Kazaa and others) you are stealing that music (albeit to give to someone else).  You are taking the money that the other person would have had to give to the artist away from that artist.  

Let me be clear here, I'm not posting this as a defense of the record industry per se but more as a defense of individual rights in general.  You can demonize the "big, bad record labels" but the bottom line is that the artists who created this music have entrusted it to the record labels for distribution.  So it is the artists, as much as the labels, who are being hurt here.

I have many friends who are artists (of various kinds) and the idea that people out there believe they have the right to take that art against the artist's wishes and do with it what they want without any compensation and then have the nerve to say its the artist's fault for not entrusting their art to someone "efficient enough" is upsetting to me. 

When someone creates something they have the right to give it to people in the means of their choosing.  Period.  To say anything else puts all our rights in danger.

Addendum: Again, I like Matthew Ingram and I don't want to pick on him but I encourage everyone to check out  his link blog.  You've never seen such an echo chamber (in regards to this issue) and that tells a lot about people who share this opinion.  They don't want to hear the other side of the issue.  (Ironic from a guy who in many ways crusades against the echo chamber in the tech blogosphere)