"Protection" as an idea, yes. But they're very different forms of protection. To protect different things in different ways.

Tony was very gentle with his reply. Your message was full of holes. And intellectual property should be protected vigorously. If a company were to let another company copy their IP and distribute some like-product for FREE, then how could that first company survive? Stupid patents are granted all the time. That doesn't negate the need for the patent office.

BTW, I was successful at getting a number of auctions pulled from eBay. The ones selling MP3s are toast.

Bruno