This is a valid concern for them, though I think it costs a bit more that $5 to rent a movie a Blockbuster these days. My wife is the one who usually does the renting. Occasionally she will bring home one movie too many given the amount of time we have before they need to be returned. More than once it has been because of an unexpected visit to the emergency room (kidney stones the last time). I admit that in certain cases such as these we will indeed “rip” a rented movie to the computer for later watching. The MPAA would most likely cringe upon hearing that, but we feel we’re entitled to watch the movie we rented at least once. We paid for exactly that privilege after all and it’s perfectly fair IMHO. I’m sure there are all kinds of arguments and excuses one could come up with to argue against that point (some license we’ve agreed to but have likely never read for instance), but even so there is no getting around the fact that it truly is only fair. Fairness, I think, is at the heart of every discussion relating to the use of copyrighted IP and greed/selfishness tends to blind everyone on both sites to that fact. Anyways, once we’ve managed to finally watch the ripped movie, we delete it. If it was really good, we’ll likely buy the DVD at a later date (Blu-ray nowadays, we’ve come to hate standard def). You can’t beat owning your own official (and might I add, legal) copy, one you can watch with alone or with friends and family as many times over as you want, complete with all extras and a nice package. I’m sure there are lots of people out there renting and making cheap copies to keep (or worse, sell) but that is a moral line everyone has to cross one their own and none of my business. Do I sleep comfortably at night? You bet I do.

But it makes a good headline, and Dan writes a good write, and as he says:

“[the MPAA is] no better than its reptilian cousins on the audio side …”

But seriously, you’re talking about communications which until the Net came along were wholly and solely controlled by various elements in the so-called entertainment sector.

That isn’t true any more and it’s becoming harder and harder for the Powers that Used to Be to divert the focus away from, “REAL issues — like for example the tottering wreckage the rest of the economy has become, two (or is it three?) very unpopular wars, human rights abuses like waterboarding, etc. etc.”

Faux News, as SRG calls it, and the other industry un-news sites, are no longer the only information vehicles around.

When I started p2pnet, there was a very distinct division between what was happening online, and what was happening off, and the lamescream print and electronic media still believed they had everything under control — their control.

That may have been true then, but in 2008 the on- and offline print and electronic media frequently find themselves forced to respond, usually inadequately, to what first shows up online.

They used to be Megaliths, but that was then. Now, they’re Brachiosaures, “sinking into a tar pit,” and every time someone, somewhere, shows them up for what they really are, they and their misinformation units sink a little deeper.

Cheers!

There’s no difference, and there really never has been.
Hell, the corporate megaliths who back the RIAA all have subunits dedicated to movies, so it’s the same behind-the-scenes players using these supposedly “separate” lobbying groups as sockpuppets.

Sorry, but the way you posed the question is EXACTLY the way the Megaliths want you to think about these issues; so long as people still believe (for example) that p2p, copyrights, patents, “fair use”, etc. aren’t related, they’ll all keep concentrating on their narrow issues, instead of challenging the fundamental issue:

Namely, DOES the existing IP regime actually promote “science and the useful arts”? Mounting evidence says no, and diverting ever more resources to futile attempts at ENFORCING the current IP regime has done nothing but stir up a lot of questions.

The more the government panders to the RIAA/MPAA lobbybots, the more resources they divert from REAL issues — like for example the tottering wreckage the rest of the economy has become, two (or is it three?) very unpopular wars, human rights abuses like waterboarding, etc. etc.