The DC Examiner has a review of a new book on pirating of intellectual property (it seems to be online only in the pdf version of the paper). I haven’t read the book (“Hot Property” by Pat Choate) so I can’t assess it’s quality, but the author appears to make many of the usual claims that copying songs is “theft” and that without tight, and vigorously enforced, intellectual property laws, innovation would stagnate. Speaking as one whose only product is intellectual property, I nonetheless am uncomfortable with the idea that copying a song or e-mailing someone’s column is really “theft.” My property right to my body and my clothes and my car and my home comes from God, but the limited monopoly over songs or words is merely an artifact of Congress; it’s a useful tool, but no more. If loosening copyright laws would mean less of the gibbering and twitching that passes for popular entertainment these days, I can live with that.