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Freenet Creator Debates RIAA
smd4985 writes "Over at CNET News.com, there's a good coverage of a debate between Ian Clarke of Freenet and Matt Oppenheim of the RIAA." In discussing whether it's "legal and moral to create and use Freenet", which is "a radically decentralized network of file-sharing nodes tied together with strong encryption", the RIAA's Oppenheim suggests: "Other than the fact that most infringers do not like to use Freenet because it is too clunky for them to get their quick hit of free music, it is no more of a threat than any of the popular P2P services."
I think the RIAA is in over its head, again. "At the end of the day, we believe we can find infringers regardless of what network they use to try to cloak their illegal activity." HA HA HA HA HA.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
freenets don't trade music, people do.
Some interesting comments in here...
It seems that Mr. Oppenheim likes to contradict himself. Observe:
He says: "By the way, the term "file swapping" is inaccurate. Nobody is swapping, people are making copies.", but later in the same paragraph says "Just as we would never agree that it is right to steal someone's clothes or furniture, it is not right to steal music." I think his second assumption is safe to make, but if he worded it in a way that was consistent with his earlier comment, would it still be as universally accepted? Sure people would protest if you stole their furniture, but would anybody see it as wrong if you copied their furniture? He's right about people breaking the law, but he should at least get his story straight.
I also thought this was interesting:
"Why should copyright holders, who as owners of intellectual property, have fewer rights than somebody who owns televisions or clothing and attempts to sell them? Clearly everyone would agree that the television and clothing retailers should be able to investigate and prosecute shoplifters."
Sure, store owners should be allowed to prosecute shoplifters, but they have to catch them in the act. Nobody should be forced to produce a receipt for their stuff weeks later because the store thinks they're short an item and they have a security camera shot of you looking at it. The question really should be "Why should copyright holders have more rights than somebody who owns clothing or televisions and tries to sell them?"
It seems that even when the RIAA is right (people really are breaking the law and infringing the rights offered to their members by copyright) their propaganda is more important to them than their real and legally defensible position.
If a legal structure such as copyright isn't enforceable, it might as well not be part of our legal system, and indeed will be thrown out.
I think often people too often focus on law and morality in a vacuum and forget that, to a large degree, *might makes right* in our society. To some degree our legal system attempts to fairly distribute power in society (often with 'fairly' defined by those who already have power), but it operates under fairly tight constraints on what sort of distribution of power is enforceable. Freenet is huge for the long-term prospects of copyright laws; if Freenet survives they will be forced to radically change in the upcoming years.
Right here on Slashdot.
Clarke: Matt seems to misunderstand Judge Posner's quote. Posner was referring to those involved in the likely "shady dealings"--not the creators of the tools they are using. To use his own analogy, the manufacturers of a mask used in a bank robbery are certainly not responsible for the criminal behavior of the bank robbers. This notion was reaffirmed by Judge (Stephen) Wilson earlier this year in his ruling in the Grokster case as it pertains to P2P networks saying, "Grokster and Streamcast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."
Well that's still not a perfect analogy. For example, if the company added a feature to the ski mask that made it harder to pull off, and advertised this feature for use in bank robberies, they'd probably be held liable for its use in a robbery. Or if they didn't advertise it, but did know that the new feature's overwhelming use would be in bank robberies, then they might also be liable. You could make a similar statement for VCR and copy machine manufacturers.
I think Freenet's a really cool technical problem, and I'd get involved in it, except for these kinds of problems. Even with all its positive uses, the idea of working on what turns out to be an ideal tool for distributing kiddie-porn just gives me the willies. I personally don't feel comfortable in this gray area of providing complete anonymity. A system that had the same benefits of distributed publishing (to avoid the Slashdot effect) without the encryption, I'd be interested in contributing to.
So now people who download illegal MP3s are crack junkies?
"Man... I'm jonesin' for my latest fix of Metallica... gimme the good stuff!"
IAALS.
...as I use it to grab a lot of stuff. It would be a real pisser if they recognised what it could do to them and shut it down before it was (technically and mind share wise) ready to go underground.
Beep beep.
There are millions of driving related accidents and homicides that take place every year across the world. Bank robbers, car theives, and demolition derbies cause the cars to be used for reasons other than they were originally intended.
My question: Where are the lawsuits against GM and other car manufacturers for providing tools of crime? Why aren't we going after the root of all evil, the car manufacturers? Why is it that we still see cars all over the planet?
Just think about it ...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
So freenet is an ethical dilemma? Next thing you know, we won't have our right of free speech!
Oh wait, nevermind....
"Just as we would never agree that it is right to steal someone's clothes or furniture, it is not right to steal music.""
It was impossible to steal anything with Napster. It is impossible to steal anything with Kazaa and Freenet. You'd think he'd know the definitions of words better.
Other than the fact that most infringers do not like to use Freenet because it is too clunky for them to get their quick hit of free music, it is no more of a threat than any of the popular P2P services.
Really, Mr. Oppenheim? I don't think you understand exactly *how well* Freenet preserves anonymity. It is *impossible* to tell where any given file is coming from over Freenet, due to the fact that data is scattered and encyrpted across the network.
With Freenet, you *can't* go after filesharers, because you don't know who the filesharers are? What are you going to to do? Take every single freenet node to court?
You'd most certainly lose that battle, Mr. Oppenheim. Just like the courts ruled that Kazaa could not be taken down because it has legimitate, uses, so to does this apply to Freenet.
And if you succeed in scaring people off the gnutella and kazaa, this is just where the hard core will turn: Freenet and distributed systems like it.
Give it up, Mr. Oppenheim. Your days of controlling music distribution are numbered.
We, the citizens of the Internet, will prevail.
My journal has hot
"
"Why should copyright holders, who as owners of intellectual property, have fewer rights than somebody who owns televisions or clothing and attempts to sell them? Clearly everyone would agree that the television and clothing retailers should be able to investigate and prosecute shoplifters.""
Why should the owner of a TV have more rights than the owner of a CD?
Copyright owners shouldnt own the information, they should own the right to profit from it.
Just like the TV maker doesnt own the TV once they sell it to you, they own the rights to sell that TV and profit from it.
What I dont like is the fact that as we buy information we dont truely own it, yet when we buy physical objects we own them. This makes no sense to me, I say if we buy music we should be able to do whatever we want with it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"it (Freenet) is no more of a threat than any of the popular P2P services."
The tone of that statement seems to imply that P2P is not a threat to the RIAA... which seems contrary to their entire defense.
I have to say, the Freenet guy came across very well in that debate since he was able to flow between humor and fact. The RIAA really needs to hire some PR people that don't seem so angry all the time. As long as they keep up this approach to PR, the more the public is going to go against them.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
They do recognize it as a threat, but they can't say "Freenet is the most dangerous P2P app out there, because it protects the user's anonymity! If everyone used it, we'd be in even bigger trouble!" because then everybody would start using it, and they really would be in bigger trouble. The RIAA shill describe Freenet as "clunky" to the average user more than once in that interview. He's simply trying to keep any average Joe's reading that article from making the switch from KaZaa.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
I think Clarke really hits the nail on the head when he says:
"Just as the motor car replaced the horse and cart, so will the Internet replace most of the roles performed by today's recording industry."
The whole RIAA rant is useless because the RIAA is on its way to obsolesence. They can hip and holler all they want, but in 15 years they won't even exist. Even the legal system and/or Congress won't be able to protect them for long - we live in a capitalist society, and in the end efficiency rules.
smd4985
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
Do car companies sue you when you share your car with other people by giving people a lift? Do car companies require each person you give a ride to, to pay a license fee?
I hate the fact that if we are going to treat information as physical property, that unlike real physical property, in which the person who buys it truely owns it, when it comes to information theres a double standard, the person who buys it actually is paying to listen to it, and its in a very strict fashion
In my opinion no company has a right to tell you how to use something you paid for.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Funniest Quote:
RIAA's Oppenheim: "How does this have anything to do with corporations? This has to do with artists and creators"
Yeah, Right... Last time I checked, the RIAA web site stated that it "is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry", not the artist community.
Why do I h8 apple?
discussing whether it's "legal [and moral] to create and use Freenet"
Of course it should be legal to use freenet.
There must be a distinction made between making acts illegal because they are bad and making things illegal because they can be used to do bad acts.
Driving very fast is dangerous and can kill. That does not mean we should make cars illegal. That would be ridiculous because cars are useful and can also be used for good/useful acts. It also does not mean that cars should be technically capped so that they can't go fast. The existance of laws against the act of fast/dangerous driving should be enough.
We get onto more morally interesting ground with this argument with guns. According to my argument, surely guns should not be banned because the existance of laws against shooting people should be enough? My argument to that would be simple - guns can't really do anything useful other than kill and main, so in the case of guns it is reasonable to ban the technology. Does that mean that it is reasonable to ban DeCSS, as that can only really usefully be used for illegal purposes?
Damn, now I've confused myself. I'm just going to lie down for a few minutes...
I know this point comes up countless times, but just because something can send files doesn't make it illegal. If anything, Freenet is less of a threat than both FTP and HTTP for sending around MP3s/videos, as it was not particularly designed to send large files. FTP and HTTP aren't illegal, so why should Freenet be? There is no reason any file sharing system should be illegal unless it's intent is for piracy (which is why Napster got in trouble, due to the emails floating around about that fact. Why aimster got in trouble, I still don't understand and I hope they win on appeal).
Oppenheim seems to suggest that Freenet is just as much a threat as any file sharing tool, no matter the fact that it's "clunky". I've always thought that the best the RIAA can hope for is to make this kind of music piracy clunky, as there will always be some sort of file sending service and copy protection can always be broken (audio-in to audion out). The RIAA and the music industry need to come up with realistic view of the world, before they lose all their sales to services like Kazaa.
Suppose I have a friend over for dinner and I'm listening to a burned copy of a CD I legally own. It's playing over the stereo in the kitchen.
I get up and leave the room, needing to go check on the burgers on the grill. My friend is the only one listening to the music.
Is this copyright infringement, because my friend is listening to a copied CD that I'm willingly playing for him? I've made an authorized copy and I'm playing it for a friend - that's all I've done so far.
Suppose we take it a step farther. My friend really likes the band, and he swipes the CD while I'm not looking. I don't notice because I was too busy fiddling with the burgers, and he switches on the radio in it's place. Am I guilty of copyright infringement because my friend's taken my CD, or is he guilty of theft from me, for which I'm certainly not going to prosecute if I ever find out, or is my friend guilty of copyright infringement, taking a legal copy of a CD from me?
I'm lost on where the copyright infringement happens in this situation. If it happens while my friend is listening to my music, virtually every CD owner everywhere is guilty of copyright. If I'm guilty when my friend takes my CD, *I* become guilty of copyright infringement for the sins of my friend; and if my friend is guilty when he takes my CD, then he's going to be the most heavily prosecuted thief in the world: when's the last time a shoplifted was prosecuted for illegal possession of a copyrighted work?
If there's NO copyright infringement at all in this situation, then what happens if I set up my computer to transfer files, I've got legal copies on my computer, and someone else takes them without me having given explicit permission?
The RIAA representative feels very strongly that people should not steal anything, be it songs, movies, chairs, etc...
However, at one point in the debate, he mentions that some people distribute the Bible on Freenet and dismisses that saying, "we can all get that from the motel we most recently visited..."
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but those Gideons Bibles found in motels are supposed to stay in the motels, right? I always thought that you were not supposed to take them. Now I know that many people do take them, but isn't that considered stealing? So didn't the RIAA representative just suggest that we should all steal Bibles from our local motels rather than get them online from Freenet?
The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
From what I've seen, Freenet is not about "trading files". Oh, that's a part of it, to be sure, and perhaps what it's built around.
But Freenet is about freedom of information. How many times did Clarke have to repeat that? It's a way for a person in China to be able to say to someone else "Maybe it's just me, but our government is less a socialistic ideal and more a dictatorship." It's a way for a teenager to say "I think I'm pregnant, but where I live I'll be stigmatized if I have an abortion, or even look for one - what information is there for me?" It's even a way for a programmer to say "You know, I've got this idea for a cryptography system, but some people in certain businesses might sue me if I even talk about it (whether it's legal or not) - so here's a way to present the information without getting myself in trouble."
That is what Freenet is about - not trading music, or movies, or the like. Yes, it can be used like that - the same way a car can be used to run someone over. Last time I checked, though, most people are just using their cars to get stuff Point A to Point B.
I think the gentleman from the RIAA either didn't get the point - or didn't care (and I believe the latter). In his mind, privacy is not important - though I'd agree with Mr. Clarke. Anonymous exchange of information is important in a democracy. It allows people to speak without fear of reprisal. Without it, people would be terrified to vote for fear their enemies would hunt them down and chop off their limbs. (I had a roommate who was so irritated that Clinton the first time, he wanted to go down the street and beat up people he discovered had voted for him. I was grateful for "secret ballots" at this time.
Eh - but that's just my take. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
If I were a storeowner, I can keep an eye, literally, on all my merchandise
You must have some really messed up eyesight. How do you deal with all those eyes lying around?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Clarke clearly does not care about illegal use of his system due to an obvious religious zeal for free and anonymous speech (which, as an American it's hard to disagree with).
Oppenheim, on the other hand, completelely (and obviously willfully) ignores the idea that the debate is about anything other than the protection of IP rights; Corporate control of government and free speech aren't even issues worth discussing to the RIAA (gee, wonder why?).
Still, though I'd hardly call this a debate, it's nice that someone beside the directly involved parties still cares enough about these issues to present both sides.
Matt made a nice analogy early on (well, I thought it was nice even if I dont like the outcome) of how bank robbers cant scream about privacy when their masks came off as they understood (in theory) what they were getting into, and the same goes for p2p nodes who are sharing illegal material and have been notified via the TOA from their ISP that they will be ratted out if there is a request. I dont agree with it, but its an interesting analogy.
Now my question is, how can trading mp3s of R.Kelly and Britany Spears be considered free speach (which was the argument that Clarke used in the second question for freenet's existance)? Step aside from the mentality of "I want to get free music" and "the RIAA is full of $hit and we need to undermind them as much as possible" and consider how is this justified as free speach? If they are going to win, it has potential to be with that.
Last but not least, if freenet has a basis to stand on free speach being protectable over mp3 copyright infrengement (not theft Matt... the US Courts dont see it as theft), then the argument *could* turn towards Phil Zimmerman and how PGP came under fire in the mid 90s which I believe was for similar reasons.
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
So what gives you the right to take that music, and create a copy of it, and give, or sell, that copy to someone else? C'mon - that BS and you (ought) to know it.
Now if they try to tell me that I can't create a copy of a CD for personal use - whole different story.
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
Not everyone likes to break out a dictionary and reveal every technical aspect of a word. When generalizing, it is easier to say "you are stealing music" then "you are infringing upon this record label's copyrights by downloading copied music". When most people think of stealing, they think of people taking stuff that isn't theirs. They don't worry about the technical aspects of actually depriving someone else of physical property. I.E. they aren't nerdy like you, and hence will not take the time to break out a dictionary to see if the use of the word "stealing" is absolutely the most correct word to be used when explaining music theft.
When music theieves try to attack the technicality of the RIAA's rhetoric, such as trying to say that the word "stealing" isn't correct, they end up looking like a kid that got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and is trying to manipulate words and circumstance to somehow make himself look either innocent or "less guilty". This behavior reveals to judges and intelligent people just what kind of a person they are dealing with.
You shouldn't steal music. It's illegal. It deprives the RIAA their rightful profits. It doesn't matter if "the RIAA sucks dude, and they made a lot of money of the artists, so what's a few MP3's to them!?!". I don't endorse Microsoft's tactics, so I don't buy their products. I don't pirate their software either, because I'm a law abiding person, and not a petty thief.
So what, sharing is still right.
When a speaker transmits sound to a group of people at a party, its illegal!
None of them own the CD and paid for these songs.
Is it right? Yes its right to share music. Its just illegal.
You share TV as well, and I dont hear anyone debating if thats right or wrong because the TV companies arent suing everyone left and right. If TV companies installed cameras in your home and fined you every time more than one person was in front of your TV, you'd think it was right because its the law. The law is always right to people like you.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
as you will see, buying a CD in the store is NOT a "licensing" purchase, you sign no license agreement. IT's not about a license.. it's about COPYRIGHT LAW.
Copyright law gives you some freedoms with the work you just purchased. You are not required to keep your proof of purchase around forever, sorry
we're not talking about corporate software licensing here, we're talking about buying cds and records in the store, which is a standard, normal sale...
I repeat, there is no license agreement... implied or otherwise. The only reason you cannot make copies of the product you bought and sell them to others is because copyright law says you can't, as you aren't the holder of the copyright.
Let me repeat that. I don't have to keep my receipts around. I can make a copy of a CD I bought, and throw the original in the garbage. I'm not breaking some law.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
The IRS asks you to provide receipts as proof of deductions or claims that you are making to change your tax liability.
They could care less what you are buying or if you bought it or not, they only care when you are claiming it towards your taxes.
They can use a visual inspection of your home as an attempt to prove that you may be underdeclaring your income (say you report an income of $25,000/year but have two Ferrari's in your front driveway that are registered in your name) but they can't simply order you to produce a receipt on any old purchase that you may have made.
DRM does NOT protect copyrights. DRM protects copy restrictions. Why? Well look at CSS as the case of DRM-light. It keeps the normal person from viewing out-of-region material or using non-approved viewers. It doesn't do a thing to stop the technically savvy copier/user.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I have been saying this for years now, The music industry had its wake up call years ago that people WANT digital delivery of music. They have failed and failed repeatedly to bring such a system. Finally, Apple has taken a step in the right direction. It has been shown that people will sacrifice quality for convenience (witness the unbounded success of lossy algorithms such as mp3 and ogg).
.flac file than download a crap ass mp3.
I may be alone, but i believe that people would spend considerable money to download music. First, the price must be right. 99 cents for a song sounds pretty damn good to me. 50 cents sounds even better.
As a lifelong music collector with over 50 crates of vinyl albums (no idea how many that is) and at least 100 gigabytes of mp3's, I can say that If such a system was in place, I would gladly pay to purchase digital music. I am not trying to cheat the system when I download music, I am trying to avoid ripping the vinyl that I have purchased. Vinyl must be ripped in real time. I could never rip my whole collection. It is just impossible.
My parents would pay for downloaded music. My sister would pay for downloaded music. My friends would.....
RIAA why are you wasting time going after these people. Present the world with a legitimate alternative and draw the line between criminals and law abiding downloaders.
Piracy hasn't hurt microsoft one bit. There will always be pirates and theives. You are not trying to sell product to them. The lord knows that I would rather pay for a
Yet here we are, 5 years down the road from napster, and a computer company has taken the initiative that the music industry is frighened to death of.
This is just further evidence that no matter how great the art form is, the BUSINESS of music SUCKS!
In the immortal words of Q-Tip
Industry Rule #5080 : Record company people are shady.
music lover since 1969
Question 1
Freenet: Thoughtful, valid answer
RIAA: It helps people steal music
Question 2
Freenet: Thoughtful, valid answer
RIAA: It helps people steal music, won't someone please think of the poor starving artists.
Question 3
Freenet: Thoughtful, valid answer
RIAA: It helps people steal music, but the term fileswapping is incorrect because they aren't swapping, they're in fact COPYING the music, and of course copying=stealing.
Question 4
Freenet: Thoughtful, valid answer amounting to "The RIAA's business model is fuxx0red and they will go away soon enough."
RIAA: He's STEALING OUR POOR ARTISTS' MUSIC, QUICK, ARREST HIM!!! WHY IS NOBODY LISTENING?!?!?!?!
Yes, I may have taken the liberty of condensing it down quite a bit......but its still dead on.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
There are holes in both sides' arguments.
If Freenet thinks its main role is going to be making nice things happen in China, and saving pregnant teens, he's either the most naive technologist who ever stepped into the sun, or he wins the Eddie Haskell award.
If the RIAA thinks they can find everyone, they're just as naive. They do have the law on their side on the face of it - and I would rather they find a way to pay-and-get in a modern fashion than bullying the world out of bad habits.
The videotape/VCR analogy loses here because you have to ship tapes around and make them in real time - it is economically obnoxious to do so, so everyone has a vcr, everyone tapes off the air / time shift views and virtually nobody ships tapes around to from their homes to anyone who wants it. The rental system does what we need in that regard.
So far, Apple's got it about as right as anyone has - we'll see if people actually will support it though - in this way the whole how-do-i-get-digital-music thing is rather like 'the prisoners' dilemma' - cooperate/gain a little and everyone gets someting - default, steal, cheat, or get greedy, and everyon gets screwed.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
"Or do those motel Bibles really say you can take them home if you want?"
Yes, they DO say you can take them if you want. That's what the Gideons do -- provide free Bibles in the hope that you'll actually read them. The Gideons were way into "information wants to be free" long before Free Software / Open Source.
Who is RTFM and when will he help me with Unix?
Second, when you share music, its no different than sharing your car, your TV, or anything else you physically own.
When you share your car or your TV, you no longer have posession of the car or TV. Unlike audio, when you send a file to someone, you still have the original and are not denied the ability to use it.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Actually dude, you are wrong. I happened to be at a church one day to see a presentation by one of their representatives, and the Gideons very much encourage you to take Bibles from hotels if you're so inclined. They consider that spreading the word. Oh wait, it's probably the Word, no? In any event, while it doesn't specifically say that you're free to take them, that is the intent of the Gideons if you are so moved by the Word. ShaunDon
Fast forward to today, and go to an open-mic night at a jazz club. Do these people make money? No. Are they artists who love to create? Absolutely. I firmly believe that the lack of financial incentive is what keeps music good - those who are driven by their own desire to create typically create better music than a professional songwriter who spends the work week writing what he/she thinks will appeal to the largest demographic. And while the former explores and provokes, the latter strives to spit out exactly what Joe Consumer, aged 21-34, is used to listening to on his favorite ClearChannel radio station.
I happen to be one of the musicians who is driven to create. I've spent far more than I've made, and it will probably stay that way for the rest of my life, but it hasn't stopped me yet. I made about $100 in royalties from a song recorded in 1995. My current band has mp3's freely available on our website (see the sig) and we would rather play a low-paying/free gig than not play at all. The art is the incentive, not the $0.14/album royalties that the RIAA pays its "recording artists." But the RIAA is only thinking about the executives and the Pop Star Factories that are only in it for the paychecks.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Just a bit of a differnet look.
The problem with this whole file sharing music p2p blah blah fiasco is that, well, the logistics surrounding "copying" were very different when copyright law was drafted. This here is a whole other situation.
I think we can all agree, more or less on a few things.
1) You can't just look at the act of copying anymore, to determine if something is morally correct or not. My web browser caching stuff, or my making a backup of my own stuff and putting it in a safe place, nobody with any common sense would tell me that it should be illegal, or that I'm harmful to society for doing it.
2) I should be able to let my buddy listen to my music, regardless of whether that mechanism involves a "copy" or not.
3) I should NOT be allowed to give away or sell copies of my music so that others don't have to purchase music, ever.
So.. the problem is we have no way to really define what's allowed and what's not.. digital makes it so easy to move music around, that we can't just look at 'copies' or 'streaming -vs- non streaming' or whatever.. we have to look at someone's overall actions. Perhaps, like some, sorry to say, drug laws, it should depend on the amount of copyrighted material you are trafficking in. Personal use woudl be a valid defence. Perhaps we should ban IP altogether, and go for purely technical solutions. I'm for the other.. having strong laws, and open technology.
Excuse me, but...hypothetically (don't try this at home kids) I go to a CD store and buy the top CD for cash. Then I come home, rip it using (take your pick) direct digital rip, analogue hole, special software to bypass copy-protection, take your pick, and place the results out on all 57 or so P2P networks. You can't miss that it's out there and rapidly proliferating faster than you can trace.
How does any watermark in existance trace that mass produced piece of silver plastic back to me?
I didn't even mention that I cut this baby lose using the local WiFi hotspot while enjoying an extra large cup of coffee with endless free refills.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why does everyone want to make a point by starting 'sharing music/vidoes/programs/ebooks is like...'?
Data duplication is fundamentally different from physical goods. The system of laws societies have built up around production and distribution of physical goods simply is not suitable for applying to information that can be duplicated with standard consumer equipment.
The sooner people realize this and find an economically and socially viable solution, the better off humanity will be. As long as people are locked into thinking of information in terms of physical media (eg, a CD instead of music) we'll be stuck with an information economy that spends resources on things that are generally unproductive (copy prevention schemes and lawyers).
Eventually we are going to start making steps toward the general assembler, where regular people at home have a device that can create from raw materials and software nearly anything we need. No one will buy objects made of plastic, glass or metal, these objects will simply be made on demand. New kinds of things will be defined simply with a data file that one could share with ones friends. Electronics won't be far behind simple mechanical devices. Forget buying an MP3 player, just borrow the definition file from a friend and print your own, in whatever color you like.
Imagine what it would be like if large corporations cripple these kinds of technologies with DRM. Thats exactly whats happening now with music and video.
Yes, governments need to protect the rights of content creators, but they also need to be aware of what will eventually be possible with technology in the near and no-so-near future, and plan their course through history as appropriate. Governments exist partially because individuals tend to do what is best for themselves right now, not what will be good for people three or four generations down the line.