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The thing is, intellectual property laws are somewhat well, imaginary, and not that consistent.
The iPod is a great example. It wasn't the first mp3 player by any means. So how come it's okay for Apple to steal an idea from another company and use its marketing prowess to squash all competitors that had products out first?
Because the law says so. Just like the (current) law says that it's okay to re-sell physical books and loan them out to people for money (like libraries). Even though in both cases, the original author doesn't get squat from every additional person reading it.
So people have to make their own moral and ethical judgments, really. In this case, like a lot of people, it was "What's best for me?" which was to complain about lost sales of her book to piracy, while buying counterfeit handbags (looks some how have more protection than ideas, like mp3 players) and downloading music she didn't want to pay for.
Or here. People play the game of nodding and winking and nudging when it comes to DRM removal, which is illegal in a lot of places. But since it's almost entirely aimed at removing it from a product you have bought, it's hardly morally objectionable.
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