Editor --

Attorney Robin Gross is right to draw a distinction between
copyright infringement and stealing ("Use of Napster Raises Ethical
Issues", Feb. 8).  Copyright is not about creators' property rights.
Rather, it is a public subsidy created by government to accomplish a
particular social objective -- subsidizing creative work.  Ignoring
copyrights by making unauthorized copies is often illegal, but it
isn't the same as theft.

Some copyright holders have called copyright infringers "thieves"
who deprive them of their "property"; in reality, those infringers
are just evading a public subsidy.  There is no serious suggestion in
the history of U.S. copyright law that authors and artists "own" their
works, as property; instead, they enjoy a legal right to restrict some
third parties' actions, as a temporary, artificial monopoly.

Copyright infringement is its own category of infraction, created by
legislators as an instrument of social policy, and has no connection
with real theft.  It should be thought of as something closer to tax
evasion.

Seth Schoen