It may have sounded like it, but I wasn't really trying to argue that those who see deep linking as copyright violations are wrong because they're violating the all-mighty sanctity of the intentions of the gods who designed the freedom of the web, yadda, yadda. When I wrote that, I was thinking that even the opposition's legal arguments might be different on deep linking than file sharing because of the technical and contextural differences between the two. And the way courts rule might vary because of those differences.
The point I tried to make with the help of Janis Ian is that the marketing value of "being available", be it as an mp3 song file or as a "deep link" in most cases exceeds the "free lunch" losses.
There are only a few newspapers in this world that are the "Brittney Spears" of their trade, everybody else rather has a "Janis Ian" standing.
