Whether theft of something no one owns is possible at all is the question.<p>As for achieving economic security off of making art, that is a reality only for a very lucky and very tiny minority of artists.  The overwhelming majority of those who benefit from art are the middle men.<p>We should carefully consider as a society whether we want to enable the middle men and a handful of lucky artists at the expense of almost all artists and the rest of society, who could well benefit from free and unfettered access to earlier cultural products.