If you haven't read this, you would enjoy it:

http://www.amazon.com/Common-Air-Revolution-Art-Ownership/dp...

For those of you interested in the history of intellectual property, copyright, and its "evolving principles", may I suggest the book Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership.

http://www.amazon.com/Common-Air-Revolution-Art-Ownership/dp...

Also, since we love hypothetical situations, how about this:

I create a replication device that can create an identical copy of any physical object.

Walking down the street, I stop in front of your brand new Lexus and make a copy of the car for myself. I then drive away in the replica.

Now, did I steal your car? Is that larceny? Or did I violate some other law? What if it was a Model T manufactured in 1908?

Of course, if new laws need to be created/revised/abrogated to treat IP violations as acts of larceny, clearly the original laws were never intended to equate the two. Otherwise, additional legislation would not be necessary (DMCA, ACTA, etc...)