File sharing is not theft, and there's unambiguous legal precedent to that effect. Really bad example. Stop conflating two laws that mean different things.
Nothing special about computers? Okay. "Persons, papers, and effects" no longer means emails, computer files, or anything other than physical, tangible documents that existed when that law was drafted. I really don't think that's the world you want to live in, or the argument you really want to be making.
The fact that the legal system thinks there's "nothing special about computers" is the cause of a great deal of difficulties that should not exist in a sane world. This is a world with new concepts that did not exist when a lot of our laws were written, and it doesn't make much sense to presuppose that there is or even can be a 1:1 mapping between the tangible and the not, all of the time.
You're being intentionally obtuse here since it's literally the first words of my post. You did quote someone else and pretty much endorsed it, but that quote contains a pernicious falsehood.
Clear enough. It is not theft. It is violation of the copyright law. A crucial distinction. Theft means you take away someone's legal property so they're not in possession of it any more. File-sharing does not take their copyright away and give it to the thief. Copyright-theft is a different thing. Right?
Nothing special about computers? Okay. "Persons, papers, and effects" no longer means emails, computer files, or anything other than physical, tangible documents that existed when that law was drafted. I really don't think that's the world you want to live in, or the argument you really want to be making.
The fact that the legal system thinks there's "nothing special about computers" is the cause of a great deal of difficulties that should not exist in a sane world. This is a world with new concepts that did not exist when a lot of our laws were written, and it doesn't make much sense to presuppose that there is or even can be a 1:1 mapping between the tangible and the not, all of the time.