John Zelezny, a media law attorney, says those who illegally download music and movies can try to paint themselves as victims of corporate greed, but they are actually the the greedy ones -- stealing copyrighted material that isn't their property. They might as well walk into an unlocked Apple store and make off with a Mac Pro computer. They might as well use someone else's credit card and buy a Bose Wave Music System online. They are stealing other people's stuff and that makes them crooks.

To justify illegal file-sharing is to ignore our property laws. A federal jury in Minnesota got it right when Jammie Thomas was held liable for $222,000 in damages for illegally downloading copyrighted recordings.

Zelezny also wrote about this issue for The Bee's opinion pages in June. He warned then that recording industry executives were going to come down on people who steal their copyrighted material, and the law was on their side.

I'm not sure why so many people think that if material is on the Internet, it's free to take. Do you think the Minnesota case will deter the crooks, or will they continue to steal copyrighted material?