As expected, the Copyright lawyers are riding to the rescue. I think this guy is a little unfair to, well, me (for reasons I could go into but won’t bother). Still, he makes the case nicely:

Matt Yglesias doesn’t know jack about copyright law (or apparently music). The music that is distributed free of charge is a loss leader to get folks to buy future recordings or to come to live shows. If I give out a free sample of my property that doesn’t mean that all of my property is free for the taking or that the statutory scheme for protecting my property is somehow void.
Yglesias states “the purpose of the copyright system is to maximize the quantity of content being produced and consumed.” You should be deriding this as a straw man. Other than Yglesias, who says this? Not the Constitution, not U.S. Copyright law, not 500 years of common law.
The point of copyright law is to motivate people to produce works of art, literature, etc. The fact that a large number of people are dedicating their property to the public doesn’t mean that everyone should or must dedicate their works to the public. Copyright is property, the most difficult type to protect (except maybe beachfront property with spotted owls).
To take your example, when you start producing photocopies of TAP you are taking dollars out of Yglesias’ pocket and removing his incentive to create. He may be forced to move on to some form of paying work and society will be worse off for it. If you decide to produce your own magazine that competes with TAP and is better because of content or value, Yglesias may move on to some better use of his time and effort the society is better off. This is where “The Free Market” and “The Market Place of Ideas” come together.
You have spent the better part of two years writing a book. Would you have done this without some expectation of monetary reward? Authors deserve the same respect for literature as musicians deserve for music. The volume of political commentary is greater than at anytime in history, so what. If I want free mediocre political commentary there are plenty of places to go. If I want well researched, written and edited I can pay for it.
Oh what sad times these are when a conservative blogger cannot come to the defense of property rights.