i get paid by the copy, how do i do that under your scenario without working for free?

Non sequitur. Copyright infringement, as the OP said, isn't theft.

How much money do you have before someone infringes your copyright? How much money do you have after someone infringes your copyright?

For an example of theft, try this: How much money do you have after using the ATM? How much money do you have after your pocket is picked and your wallet stolen?

In the first example, you've got the same exact amount of money. Nothing was "stolen" from you -- laws were broken, but not every law is "stealing". In the second example, a law was (presumably several were) also broken. In that case, theft occurred -- you were deprived of property.

Theoretical profits do not make theft. Stop conflating the two.

Dorothy: "Look, a man made out of straw!"

The poster you responded to said nothing about sharing his playlist with the world, and neither did I. How does an unadvertised, password protected share amount to "sharing with the world?" If "Napsterization" of the sharing feature is a concern, then all Apple has to do remove the ability to share non-passworded libraries outside the network, or initiate a mechanism (key-based, perhaps?) similar to the one for authorizing ITMS purchased music.

You could, say "authorize" 3 or 5 or 10 or some other low but reasonable number of offsite machines to stream music from your shares. Obviously, this solution would require some software engineering (so it would be more of an iTunes 4.2 feature than an iTunes 4.01 feature), but it would restore a bit of walk-it-like-you-talk-it balance to the idea of treating your customers like thinking adults (the historical Apple postition) rather than like theiving little maggots who'll buy-what-we-sell-and-STFU about it (the historical record industry position.)

It's not SHARING if it's being downloaded.

Huh? If it's being downloaded, it might be legal, legitimate sharing or it might be copyright infringement. It sounds as though you believe illegal sharing (as opposed to legal sharing) is stealing. But copyright infringement is not theft. If I steal something you own, you don't have it any more. If I copy something you own, you still have it. It's an important distinction.

Do you believe that making a mix CD and giving it to a friend is sharing? Do you believe that it's theft? Do you believe that it's always an infringement of copyright? What do you believe fair use is for?

In iTunes 4.0, Apple is shutting a door that some people have used to infringe on others' copyrights. The problem is, a lot of people also use this door for legitimate purposes. IMHO, Apple has just taken a step or two down the road of treating its customers like criminals. There's been altogether too much of that sort of thing recently and people are pissed as a result (or at least I am).

share his music collection, using a solution that is both technically and morally sound
btw sharing a menu of MP3s with the world is not the same ballpark as whipping up a mix tape for a friend. It ain't even the same sport.
 
Windows -- the OS equivalent of junk food - Bill Joy

The service announcement is handled via dns service discovery over multicast dns. The actual sharing occurs via daap which uses http as it's transport over tcp port 3689.

Fixing the ttl on the multicast packets (thanks for pointing that out, it's something to remember when I'm writing my own mdns libraries) would be completely unrelated to blocking daap access from non-local subnets. (Having implemented that myself, I know they'd live in completely different areas :).

Anyone who can afford enough gear plus electricity to keep their home system(s) always-on (or have 1U in a data center) can afford a few blank CDs or maybe an iPod.

Um, my ibook uses about 12-20W with the screen dimmed. The electric bill wouldn't noticeably change if I left it on 24/7. (Yes, it would still be wasteful, but it's just not on the level of buying an ipod.)