> Does there need to be? People are taking something for free, something someone is trying to sell and does not want to be taken for free. Surely that is enough for illegal sharing of music to be considered bad? If an artist wants their music to be free they would make it free.
Most of the pushes for these laws and raids are done by studios who insist they are losing out, big-time. "Think of the jobs!" If the pirates cannot have their narrow anecdotal evidence, nor can the studios. ;)
"People are taking something for free" simplifies the issue, and misrepresents it as well. If I made a song and priced it at three billion dollars and thousands of people "stole" it, would it be the biggest theft in the history of mankind? The terms set out by which information can be exchanged should not be exclusively in control of the creator. Copyright has generally existed under the premise that society demands a little fair use in return. That should be based on what is practical to enforce, and partially on what benefits culture the most.
Consider that almost nothing can be done about piracy without sacrificing everybody's civil liberties. This is not a crackpot theory, technologies exist _today_ which end the ability of the government to enforce copyright or any other law over information being exchanged between two parties. The Internet would have to be deeply curated. Even that wouldn't stop it.
Are you willing to go that far to enforce copyright? If not (as I hope) you should support making non-commercial filesharing legal, and expanding fair use in other ways.