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States Threaten P2P Companies
The Importance of writes "C|Net News reports that 46 state attorneys general are warning P2P companies of dire, unnamed consequences for continuing to exist, 'At present, P2P software has too many times been hijacked by those who use it for illegal purposes to which the vast majority of our consumers do not wish to be exposed.' Read the letter here (pdf) [PDF], or the annotated text version."
"When p2p networks are outlawed, only outlaws will have p2p networks"
Pretty much,
"The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Act and other recent IP acts extend the copyright term to something like 100 years. It's appalling, and serves no purpose other than to allow big corporations to buy and sell our cultural history just like so many other commodities. Our parents generation enjoyed the proper balance between protecting innovators and the public. It's clear that our current leaders have no respect for the value of the public domain.
We're raised on music, movies, and games only to learn that we have to pay a tithe to revisit our childhood. There's no reason we should stand for that. 5-10 years is more than sufficient time to ensure that an investor/artist is compensated. Until congress stops selling out the average american to corporations, there's no reason the average american should respect the acts of congress."
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky