I really have to question the analogies between downloading P2P files and shoplifting or running off with your neighbor's lawnmower. Intellectual property and personal property are two different beasts entirely.

Can your neighbor, at his convenience or whim, walk into your garrage, roll out your lawnmower and cut all the lawns in the neighborhood at a profit and later send you a user fee that you did not agree to. No way.

But you as a copyright owner can write the greatest song ever written, record it in the finest studio with the best producer and engineer backed by the best of the best studio musicians, and what do you have?
You have a prime candidate for some major jumping on it, recording it using one of the artists they are developing, knocking you off the airwaves with their muscle and simply paying you a "compulsive license" fee.

Does the fame showered upon the major artist who recorded your song get you the good gigs. Nope. He/she gets the concert tour.

The irony is that compulsive license was introduced into the copyright statutes to allegedly help the little guy, the fear being that the major music publishers at the time would simply sign all the good writers and create a music monopoly. Duh!

So Brian, when my next lawnmower comes with a compulsive license agreement atached to the throttle, your analogies may have more validity.

P.E. Knudsen