"If you don't like it, move to another country."
There is still such a thing as democracy here (for the most part). Meaning that if I don't like it, I should try to change it, not just run away to another country. Do you agree with all the your national, state, and local laws? By your argument, if you don't, you should leave. This was an unfortunate addition to an otherwise interesting note.
As for the issue of copyright theft, there is a huge difference between someone stealing your work and making a profit on it, versus someone sharing it with friends or others in a non-profit way. The former is clearly wrong according to legal and moral principles. But the latter is a gray area. The fact is, once you have released your intellectual property into the world, you can never completely control how it will be used. It can be parodied, misinterpreted, poorly copied, reviewed, repeated by mouth, and so on. Copyright law can only go so far in preventing this, and when it goes too far, it starts smelling like a dictatorship (doesn't matter whether it's government or corporate: a dictatorship is just that). The point is, there is a balance somewhere to be found, and this stuff is so new that balance has not yet been worked out. But it is clear that peer to peer technologies will play a role, whether RIAA likes it or not.
Slashdot Mirror
"If you don't like it, move to another country." There is still such a thing as democracy here (for the most part). Meaning that if I don't like it, I should try to change it, not just run away to another country. Do you agree with all the your national, state, and local laws? By your argument, if you don't, you should leave. This was an unfortunate addition to an otherwise interesting note. As for the issue of copyright theft, there is a huge difference between someone stealing your work and making a profit on it, versus someone sharing it with friends or others in a non-profit way. The former is clearly wrong according to legal and moral principles. But the latter is a gray area. The fact is, once you have released your intellectual property into the world, you can never completely control how it will be used. It can be parodied, misinterpreted, poorly copied, reviewed, repeated by mouth, and so on. Copyright law can only go so far in preventing this, and when it goes too far, it starts smelling like a dictatorship (doesn't matter whether it's government or corporate: a dictatorship is just that). The point is, there is a balance somewhere to be found, and this stuff is so new that balance has not yet been worked out. But it is clear that peer to peer technologies will play a role, whether RIAA likes it or not.