Whatever has changed, it’s hampering creativity. This is not a good thing. And these types of rulings are awful.
No, it isn’t and no, they aren’t.
Because it is theft. The unauthorized use of someone else’s protected intellectual property is a type of theft, just like the unauthorized use of someone else’s real property would be theft.
False. Your statement is wrong legally, morally and linguistically. Your use of the phrase “real property” explains exactly why.
Regardless of whether copyright infringement is or is not wrong, it’s certainly not the same wrong as theft. If someone steals my wallet, then I don’t have a wallet any more. If someone infringes my copyright on a work of art, I do still have my work of art.
Update:
"A jury agreed and awarded him the $2.8m payout, but a judge later overturned that verdict, saying the melody was not “particularly unique or rare”.
Upholding that decision, an appeals court said the original verdict could have suffocated musical creativity.
…
Allowing a copyright over this material would essentially amount to allowing an improper monopoly over two-note pitch sequences or even the minor scale itself…"
Perhaps the beginning of the end of the ridiculousness that has ensued from the Blurred Lines case?