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MGM v. Grokster: Here's Why P2P is Valuable
Briefs defending Grokster's right to exist were filed yesterday in MGM v. Grokster, from Intel, Creative Commons [PDF], and many others. Among them, 17 computer science professors laid out the case for P2P, beginning with principles: "First, the United States' description of the Internet's design is wrong. P2P networks are not new developments in network design, but rather the design on which the Internet itself is based." Pointedly, the EFF compares this case's arguments to those made over 20 years ago in the Betamax case, which established the public's right to use video-copying technology, because of its "substantial non-infringing uses," even though many used videotape to infringe copyright. We'll soon see whether that right will extend to peer-to-peer software: the Supreme Court takes this up on March 29th.
This is why I bang my head on the wall so much when I hear people get completely wrong simple things which really aren't technical, yet appear to excuse their manglings as acceptable because only wizards with great intellects can fathom it. Probably has a lot to do with the same mentality which says, "it's ok to give up some of my rights in these trying times, it's for the good of the country."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1. Save the children! The Supreme Court is out to kill children, so it's safe to assume that they're also out to make mistakes in their rulings.
2. Corporate lobbyists are always in the Supreme Court telling the justices how to rule, and the justices rule as the lobbyists tell them to.
3. The sky is green.
No, it's not the right to execute children. 44% said that is ok to execute people who committed these crimes as children. There is a huge difference. In Arizona, there are 4 inmates who now won't be executed. They all are now in their late 20's and early 30's. They are incarcerated for crimes they committed when they were not yet 18. I am not advocating capital punishment at all, but I do think that you should understand what was decided.
All we need is a P2P BitTorrent and it will do away the need for torrent hosting sites like LokiTorrent and SuperNova
fuvoo: watch something
P2P has been established as a useful technology. Nobody is denying this. Nobody wants it to be banned (at least they're not officially).
Grokster is an application of P2P technology that appears to exist to allow people to swap copyrighted files without permission.
They are not the same thing. MGM just wants Grokster and StreamCast banned. Not P2P itself!
This isn't true. Four of the nine justices were of the opinion that it is not unconstitutional to sentance minors to the death penalty, this doesn't mean that those justices believe that it is fine to execute children. It is the justices' duty to make decisions based on their interpretations of the constitution and laws, not based on their personal opinions. For evidenece of this, look at their decision in the Flag-burning case (I'm too lazy to look up the name of the case). Justice Scalia, who is opposed to flag burning, was the swing vote in the case which upheld our right to burn the US flag. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, ask him about the case and he'll tell you that it was one of the toughest decisions he had ever made on the court at the time.
the first is a moral issue, which has little bering on corporate profits (except the sick little monkeys in the execute-minors-industry). This case has to do with fear. Fear of losing control of 'properties'* and fighting tooth and nail (and no small amount of kicking under the table) to strangle consumption of their goods. Get the crap out there in volumes and at fair prices and pirates will be a thing of the past. Withhold it and then even rip off consumers with alleged-Widescreen (cropped from pan-and-scan) and you get those around the cracks and seams who will provide for themselves.
*most of which should have fallen into the public domain, by now, including a well known mouse caricature.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Oral arguments in this case will be held March 29. I am strongly considering making the trip up to DC for this one, especially since it's on a day when I only have one class and, frankly, MGM v. Grokster is slightly more interesting than Criminal Law. But my newfound loyalty to class attendance (compare to my undergraduate days, when I actually had a class that I only went to for exams and to get the syllabus the first day (I got a B)) will probably trump any desire to hear what the Supreme Court justices have to say on the matter in their colloquy with counsel.
Is anyone in the DC area going to go?
If P2P is so valuable, then everyone who uses it to steal movies and music should realize that they're abusing something important. Those of us who use BitTorrent to get Linux distros and legal content don't really appreciate the fact that 30% of the entire Internet's traffic is from the transfer of pirated BitTorrent files, especially if that potentially leads to anti-P2P legislation.
44% of the Supreme Court felt that policy decisions, like this one, properly belong to state legislatures. Please read Scalia's dissent.
I don't even want to debate whether it is cruel AND unusual (don't forget there is a conjunction) is a good or a bad thing. The point that people on both the right, left and center have to get into their collective heads: just because you like or dislike the results of a legal decision doesn't mean the legal decision was good or bad.
I don't like X. X was outlawed by the decision. Therefore, the decision was good. Well, this past decision was shotty?
You should be more worried that 6 justices (I'm including Conner) pretty much follow whatever whim they have and then try to back it up with shotty legal reasoning. That's why you should worry. I have no idea how those members of the court will judge something Constitutional or not. They are like boats set adrift on the ocean.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
This is why I contribute.
BURN!
Fucking awsome!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This has nothing to do with P2P as a method of communicating data. This has everything to do with the providers of P2P networks providing reasonable safeguards against copyright infringement, which, like it or not, is the law of the land.
Saying that P2P is an important network standard and therefore grokster cannot be held liable for what it enables with its software is the equivalent of saying that, since libraries are essential to the transmission of information, the government cannot request that the book "Practical Guide to Terrorist Attacks" be taken off library shelves.
There is a difference between eliminating a transmission method and policing the items that are actually purveyed. For example, everyone lives in a house. But that doesn't mean that we can't be against crackhouses, or that we can't demand that landlords take precautions to safeguard against their property being used as crackhouses.
If you are against copyright infringement, fine. If you don't think that the safeguards being proposed against copyright infringement over P2P networks are reasonable, fine. But don't pretend that this is an attack on P2P itself. The truth is that P2P networks have made absolutely no effort to provide even minimal safeguards against copyright infringement. The industries have every right to demand that P2P networks be held to the same standards that other transmission methods are held, and to claim that the very Internet is under attack is a red herring.
"First, the United States' description of the Internet's design is wrong. P2P networks are not new developments in network design, but rather the design on which the Internet itself is based."
Exactly. I cringe every time I read about some clueless politician or corporate figure point to a fundamental part of the Internet and call it a new and emerging evil.
For instance, the Internet was designed with redundancy in mind, when where a dead end is put in place, data can find another route to it's destination. Then you have some idiotic politician out to try and score points saying he wants the censor the whole of the internet of porn, free speech etc "for the sake of the children" Please.
And then you have idiots in marketing who think that the Internet "Is a big untapped market" of people who are just itching to come to their dingy website spend billions.
Sigh...
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
The problem for MGM is that Grokster, along with other file sharing services, doesn't actually infringe on anything, although they do provide an avenue for doing so. Using MGM's thinking, the Internet as a whole should also be eliminated since it can be used to distribute material illegally.
Don't get me wrong; I am highly critical of those who wrongly distribute copyrighted material, but Grokster (in and of itself) is not to blame for this.
This will be interesting, but I'm a little nervous about *where* the Supreme Court will take this one. Applying constitutionality to modern technology is a little tricky; Roe v Wade, for instance, gave us a ruling based on the combined interpretation of several amendments resulting in a "right to privacy."
Are p2p networks covered by our right to gather? Our right to associate? Our right to privacy? Which amendments will apply to the laws being challenged?
I certainly hope for a ruling favorable towards p2p. But not just for p2p--also because whatever ruling gets handed down will likely set a lot of precedent for other cases where corporate interests weigh in against developing technology.
Free Sony PlayStation Portables from Gratis.
I make it a point to make available on Gnutella the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, works by Thoreau, Poe and Twain, along with mp3's of early jazz blues albums all of which is in the public domain. I consider this my contribution to "Substantial non-infringing uses", I encourage everyone to do the same.
If the Supreme Court is truly serous about Copyright Law then it will need to enact a heavy Copyright Infringement Tax on any goods being shipping in from China and other coutries where the Copyright Law is Totally Abused. Forget dinkering around with filesharing networks that cost pennies in relation to the world practice of not paying $10/movie like US citizens have to do to see the movie!
When I was a kid people used to record tapes off the radio. Is that legal?
If so, why not make a frieTunes that sucks songs off the Internet radio stations and, if you have a radio card, the radio? Just tell fT what you want and it trolls for it and then sucks it into your personal listening library.
BTW, corporations are having a hard time adapting their business models to new technology. One thing history has shown is that countries that burn their fleets to hide exposure to the rest of the world (China) or ignore technology (battery in India) fell woefully behind. Allowing a supreme court to drive technology adoption is ludicrous.
We all know that technology such as file sharing is not going to die. Some country will have copyright-bypassing DVD burners by the end of the year and then, again, China will sell movies for $1 while the USA people are gouged for $10 at the theater! So, then the US government-backed economists will tell us the cost of living is lower is why our jobs are making a mass exodus but have not the fortitude to admit they have enacted a legal system that financially attacks Americans/lets other coutries off scott free.
Sadly, this is a case of extracting money from whoever can pay rather than enforcing legal justice. To continue to turn a blind eye on the rampant Copyright Infringements in Asia while attacking filesharing is like giving a speeding ticket to the guy late for work while failing to even investigate thefts (oh yeah, I'm wure we've all experienced this!!!).
Expect Freedom.
I submit that Betamax has done more for this world than VHS ever will from this case alone. Thank you Sony! And I'm sorry the format didn't achieve better acceptance.
I'm especially reminded of this ever time I do a visual scan on a VHS machine, that has never worked as smoothly and easily as Betascan[tm] did from its very first incarnation.
RIP Betamax. Gone, but never forgotten!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
linux distributions?
http://www.filerush.com
Or are we talking specifically clients like Morpheus , et al?
There are a LOT of conspiracy theory documents, etc on P2P networks (or there were last time I used one) that would certainly qualify as a free speech use.
There are also loads of personal photos that people apparently want to share with the world.
It's also a viable distribution method for independent artists.
The list goes on and on and on.
This is a civil matter, and is not as explicitly provided for in the Constitution as is the right to keep and bear arms. The main question here is whether MGM can sue Grokster for contributory copyright infringement. Note that the NRA aims to achieve its goals by legislative lobbying rather than amicus briefs to the Supreme Court - the gunmakers immunity bill of last year that they supported, for example, would have prevented you from suing Glock if someone shot you with a Glock. The NRA is better at throwing money at a problem than they are considering anything but their one-track understanding of what constitutes a "problem."
On a side note, the problem I had with that bill was that the courts should be making that distinction on their own, and the bill itself could have led to you being unable to sue Glock if you were shooting one and it exploded in your face. I am not an NRA fanboy, but I support many of the things they do nonetheless. This is just not their area of expertise.
Well, that tells you something about him. It should have been a no-brainer: A flimsy piece of cloth is obviously not as important as our freedoms. If he had to struggle over that for more than 30 seconds, he's not fit for his position.
And 100% of those "children" thought it was just fine to execute other human beings. Some of them even felt it was okay to execute other human beings because they were children still, and therefore the state couldn't do anything really bad to them.
Those are not people I want to live beside afterwards. So just where are your priorities?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I was pointed there by Ed Felton in a response post on the brief's abstract page on Freedom to Tinker,
I love getting some free Ivy League insight (as an aside, I go to Rutgers where we are always using information from our Ivy League friends).
I don't keep a lid on my coffee so when I walk around I look busy -me
Oh wait, is it the IP packets after all?
Thus proving that the mods are complete and total idiots. :)
No, they need merely show that P2P is capable of significant noninfringing uses. Actual uses are not required. It's trivial to meet that standard; this case is about changing the standard.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I know some people that would do it free of charge to the state. That aside, there are also others who have commited murder on the day before their 18th birthday. As I understand it, the states that allow juveniles to be executed require this: That they have been at least 14 when the crime was commited, be tried as an adult, the prosecutor must seek to try them as an adult, and the judge AND jury must agree to the death penalty. At least that's how it is in VA. And the one reason why malvo didn't get the needle is because of the judge.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Just for curiosity, which are the non-murdering uses for a gun?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Back in 1968, when DARPA was creating the internet, Paul Baran pointed out that there are potentially 3 different kinds of networks, a centralized 'star' type network, a distributed network (basically what the internet is today), and a decentralized network (p2p).
Please click the link and look at the diagram. It's one of the single most important concepts vital to understanding the structure of the internet.
This is nothing new. The decentralized design was chosen to maximize the price to redundancy ratio. A distributed network is too prone to failure and was not feasable back in 1968 (and still isn't today because of the basic economic structure in America. The internet will remain decentralized as long as the telcos own the phone lines.)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
P2P is a tool. It can be used for good or bad, it can be used for serious work or entertainment. But at the end of the day, P2P is a tool, just like a screwdriver, hammer, knife, or gun. The hands that you put tools in decide how the tool is going to be used. There is nothing enharently evil about a gun, it is how it gets used that makes the difference.
I don't really want gang-bangers to have guns, but I think that having a police officer with a gun is usually a good thing.
P2P should not be illegal, the act of piracy is already illegal. We do not need new laws, or even need the old laws "fleshed out" - they are perfectly adequate and can address the issue of piracy.
I guess there isn't a moderation for "self-referentially ironic".
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I'm sure we'll find a technical solution to the problems presented by this Tragedy of the Commons just like we were able to find a technical solution for the similar one with Spam.
Oh, wait...
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
No no... I mean, what's being distributed in higher volume than copyrighted material?
Porn
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
The point I'm making is that for years, ISPs have been providing Usenet services to their subscribers, everyone knows that pirated material is on Usenet yet I've not heard of an ISP being forced to shut down the service due to pressures from the likes of the MPAA or RIAA.
Just strikes me as curios, that's all...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
44% of the Supreme Court thought its fine to execute children.
What a provocative misstatement.
4 out of 9 justices believed that there was no distinction in the law as it's written between a person who committed a crime at the age of 18, and a person who committed a crime at the age of 17.
No one has suggested it's proper to strap an 8-year-old into an electric chair.
"Analogy time! Knives:HTTP/FTP/etc::Guns:P2P. There's plenty of non-infringing (non-murdering) uses for both, but the latter group certainly makes it easier."
So what? In the US, guns are still legal even though don't seem to have ANY legitimate use. The irony is that we are more likely to see P2P banned before guns are. After all, when the NRA comes to protest in numbers on your doorstep, you take notice. When a bunch of iPod toting teens show up, you probably think, "meh".
"There was a guild of canon balls;
Their motto was 'don't tread on me'."
Opening cans of beans? Noisemakers at a party?
Just kidding, but that's why I didn't choose guns for my analogy. Guns are built to be weapons, i.e. hurt people and animals. That's what they're constructed for, and though I suppose you could use one for a door-stop, it's not a sensible use. Knives, on the other hand can easily be used as weapons, and the difference between a knife constructed to be a weapon and a utility knife or a steak knife is relatively minor, and they can often be used interchangeably.
So P2P applications are more comparable to knives. The same way a knife will cut through rope, steak, or human skin just the same, P2P applications will distribute infringing material and free material just the same.
So the question becomes then, what is the difference between someone who is 17 years and 364 days and 23 hours old who brutaly rapes and muders a woman compared to someone who is 18 years 0 days and 0 hours old? When one becomes 18 is one magicaly more capable of understanding the right and wrong of a situation?
If you actualy read anything, you would notice most of the disenting opinions beleived that competency should be established on a case by case basis. This ban effectively says everyone under 18 is not conpetent enough to know that murder is wrong.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
But I would suggest strongly that you look at many of the other briefs available on EFF's site. Respondents' Brief (the one by StreamCast and Grokster) is the most important, and there are many high quality amicus briefs. Eben Moglen, who wrote on behalf of FSF, has some great lines in his; and there are many other excellent ones.
To me this should be a very simple case to rule on. The government shouldn't be concerned that certain companies are supposedly losing money. After all, it is not the government's job to ensure the wealth of certain people/organizations. What the government should be concerned with is the application of law and specifically if the law is being broken. By definition, technology cannot break the law. Therefore, I believe that the government has no choice but to keep the precident set with Sony v. Universal. Also, if they did decide to alter the law to make technology that is used for mostly illegal purposes outlawed, who is going to decide what technology fits in this category, and who is able to predict what new inventions will fit? If anything, a reversal in the Betamax ruling will make innovation difficult and only benefit corporations that are already insanely rich.
Instead of concentrating on how to stop people from copying movies and music, the responsible industries should be concentrating on how to ensure that people are willing to buy their goods. I buy my digital music because it is easy, high quality, and has DRM that I can live with (from iTunes anyway). I also buy the movies I like because the format is always higher quality than what I can download. Who wants to watch some divx compressed screener on a nice home theater system?
Movie and music companies should concentrate on what they do, make movies and music, not on stifling technology.
SIGFAULT
I don't think it's age-I think it's citizenship
as in, the goverment is empowered to execute citizens who wrong the goverment, and minors (non-voting folks that they are) aren't CITIZENS as such, they are chattel, with some rights, but damn few privledges, and in exchange for not getting those privledges, they are not liable to the same extent.
What I want to know? if a minor is tried as an adult, and aquitted, does he get to vote? why not?? it's been acceptably proven that the individual in question is as responsible as an adult....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
None of this is to say that guns are bad or should be outlawed. But think about it, it's essentially different to say, "Knives aren't only weapons, since they can also be used in weapon training and weapon competition," versus saying, "Knives aren't only weapons, since they're also cooking instruments."
As I understand it, the primary challenge is entirely interpretation of current copyright law, with its foundation in Article 1, section 8. To grossly oversimplify (and IANAL), MGM &c claim the technology is fundamentally for copyright violation, and that they should be able to collect damages from the Grokkers for the infringements; the Grokkers say it has substantial non-infringing uses, and that the actions of the users are the fault of the users, and go collect money from them.
The proposed legislation to ban peer to peer would need to be challenged on 1st amendment grounds, but that's not the case before the court. MGM &c are not directly challenging the legality of the product, but merely claiming the maker has responsibility for its consequential use. It may touch on the issues, but that's not where the focus lies.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Slashdot is a forum for discussion, get over it.
If you want advice on how to get paid lots of money without showing results, though, he's your guy.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Ah, well, if it's legitimacy we talk of, then it is a personal moral opinion. Enjoy yours!
I would take some issue with your points though:
1) a)the efficacy of a course of action is irrelevant as to it's legitimacy as a morally acceptible course of action. I cannot poop gold; but this is of no bearing to a discussion of whether I should or not.
1) b)the fact that the US federal and state governments constantly try to get round the constitution's limits on their powers does not invalidate the legitimacy of that document. I have no doubt that any attempt to overthrow the US government from within would be met with crushing force. This is largely the point of the ammendment: to try and prevent the Govt. from supressing legitimate dissent with force. It has probably now failed. The Republic is probably now an Empire. What can you do?
2) a)Most people in the world accept the principle that sometimes it is legitimate to use deadly force to act for the greater good. I think the Mahatma put it best when he said "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defend me, I told him it was his duty to defend me even by using violence." Obviously, he prefered when possible the third way, of non-violence, but he accepted that sometimes violence was, regretably, necessary.
If you disagree with him, and do not believe that the use of force against other humans is ever legitimate, no matter how many Jews they gas, then indeed, guns are probably not legitimate. What did Monty Python say again? "Blessed are the meek! Oh, that's nice, isn't it? I'm glad they're getting something, 'cause they have a hell of a time."
2) b)If it is acceptable for the police to have weapons to defend themselves, how much more so is it for the people to have weapons to defend themselves? Particularly since the police are under no legal obligation to do anything to protect the people. You seem to have accidentally suggested another legitimate reason, whoops!
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
You state that some people believe that there is a distinction between taking an innocent life, taking the life of the guilty, and accidental death. There is not.
I agree that accidental death is different. There is no intent to kill. The other two are no different, though. Either knowingly killing someone is wrong, or it is not. A person may believe that the wrong avoided by killing someone makes it justifiable, but that does not change the underlying moral decision on whether killing is right or wrong.
My belief is that the only time killing a person is justifiable is when it is done because there is no choice - the person must be killed to protect another person or people. If a person is in prison, they cannot harm other people. So, executing them is wrong. If that same person were out of jail and was attempting to kill someone else, the police would be justified in killing him to stop him.
This has nothing to do with abortion. As another poster said very well, what is involved when deciding on abortion is deciding what makes a human. Becoming human is a process. Until that mass of cells that is created by the joining of the sperm and the egg becomes human, abortion is not killing. Since there is not a scientific or medical definition of when that happens, it is up to each person to decide. Therefore, under the law, abortion should remain a personal choice.
But that's just the point. A responsible person hopes that by possessing a gun he will *prevent* violence against himself and his family through the *threat* of using the gun. Violence avoided, no murder committed.
We used a huge collection of nuclear weapons for the same purpose during the Cold War. It was a scary time, but it worked out OK, and all life on Earth was repeatedly not extinguished in a nuclear apocalypse.
The primary purpose of a gun is to prevent violence. This may involve one of the secondary purposes of a gun, which is killing people, but that is not the goal.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It seems that the eventual legal answer will be a federal policy requiring content publishers to be licensed like radio. You and I may recognize that the www is bi-directional, but, at a higher level, websites are considered publishers. Before you flame me with "1st Amendment" bullshit, consider that there is nothing in the Bill of Rights that says you have a right to avoid licensing. Most major media have license requirements to some degree, so, the precedent is there. Even low level "consumer" publishing has license requirements: HAM, CB, CableAccess TV. Jurisdiction? Also, it can be said that, in the US, internet content is subject to FCC regulations, especially WiFi, and any data conduits subsidized by tax payer money. It will be a matter of time before some senator realizes there is a triple win here: a public schmooze fest of "decency on the web", content protection for hollywood [licensing introduces accountability] and a new tax avenue for these "licenses". In this case, it will no longer be about the "Pirates" trading the MP3s, but, about enforcement sweeps that lean on ISPs to prove their the webbies have valid licenses. Sucky days ahead!
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
And if you want to know the law, check the code, don't go on a feeling or belief.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Wait a moment! Butterfly knives serve a very useful purpose. They make it easier to spot the people with no clue how to use a knife in a fight or as a tool.
The media companies are asserting that if a technology is primarily used for illegal activity, then it should be banned.
Since there are statistics showing that a majority of email is now SPAM, which is illegal, shouldn't we have to shut down email as well?
Vietnam: A well armed populace backed by the might of the Chinese army and supplied by the military industrial complex built by the Chinese and the Soviets before 1962
Afghanistan: A well armed populace consisting of, among other, Osama Bin Laden. Armed by the United States of America and trained by the CIA.
Any examples where there's not a superpowe involved?
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
I would disagree -- two hundred years later, the only thing that makes me think that the use for a firearm would ever arise is still my government.
My fellow citizens elected George Bush -- to paraphrase Catch-22, "everywhere I look is a nut, and it's all a sensible young gentleman like myself can do to maintain his perspective amid so much madness".
It's a nation with enough sheep to blindly trust whatever is told them by whomever thumps their chest the hardest. Would that my government held themselves to the same standards they impose upon everyone else, I wouldn't wonder about the need to defend America from anything.
Regarding the Department of Homeland Insecurity, FUDrakers, the lot of 'em, but when you've got the schools telling you from youth not to question the ones in charge, the local news tells you about how much better we all are now that you can't bring so much as a Bic lighter on an airplane, and the President of the Yoo-nited States himself telling you how much you're in danger, and that it's all Saddam's fault despite the lack of indicators that he did anything wrong at all other than be a general shit within the boundaries of his own country, it's understandable that those wanting to be good little citizens would gladly agree to show their papers when boarding flights, without question.
Does the right to bear arms act to keep the government from etching away at personal freedoms? No, because while we might have the right to own arms, the right to bear them has been long tossed aside. In fact, one of the quickest ways to get arrested would be to bear a firearm while expressing your dislike for the general invasion of privacy and standing in a public setting.
I guess the point is that the right to bear arms was intended by those who ran from a shitty government to protect us from a shitty government of our own, which is a noble cause. Heck, it's what they tell me America is supposed to be about -- allowing the citizens to enjoy personal freedoms unavailable elsewhere.
On the other hand, I'd wager that most MP3 swapping networks were intended to provide routes for copyright infringement, no matter how much people stand up and cry "there are legitimate uses!"
I don't think the two are that related, but people keep bringing up the gun-control thing in relation to P2P. It's interesting, though, that your reaction to my defense of the second amendment is so like the reaction of my government to those who defend of privacy -- by claiming that I don't need it (guns or privacy) unless I'm afraid of something, and that if I have nothing to fear I'd have no use for it.
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!