But then again, under your argument, you should have to pay for everything you would otherwise be able to freely do because it is not required for you to live.

You’re stealing from ford if you build your own car.. you should be compelled to buy their product if you want a car.
You have to pay lazboy if you want a chair.. it’s illegal to chop a tree down and build it.

When you make a copy.. it costs these companies nothing. It costs you money for the hardware, the internet connection, and the software. Since copyright was constitutionally intended to encourage publication of new works for the public to enjoy, we should be paid service charges for all this distribution we do for the RIAA.

When i listen to music.. it becomes a piece of myself. I keep the song around because it reflects something in myself and speaks of myself. It is.. in the emotional and proprietary sense.. MY song.

Jon seems to have the most trouble with those.
Idiots.

I figure they get a supeona in the mail, read the heavy legal language and freak a little. If they see a lawyer I figure the lawyer (most likely not knowing all that much about the specifics of p2p or copyright) tells them to settle, that the case is unwinable. Those who want to fight are told that if they decide to take this to court instead of owing $3,000 to $10,000 they will potentially owe upwards of $500,000 - which has to be payed off - no claiming bankruptcy here. It’s a favourite tactic of the RIAA to threaten a higher amount if you fight them.

In order to fight you need witnesses, experts, a legal team well versed in copyright law and computer science or willing to go the extra mile to become well versed. All of this costs money and when you stack up $250 an hour or more (charges include writting letters, phone calls, research etc) just for the lawyer, then add on costs for depositions, travel expenses for experts (if none exist who are willing to testify in court locally) it all adds up … $3,000 becomes nothing compared to the cost of fighting. Your fighting someone with unlimited resources - that in itself can prove daunting.

Then there is the stress from entering into a legal battle. Who knows how much stress an individual can handle …

I’m one of the one’s who would welcome a battle but I am Canadian - so no battles for me

To steal something, you have to deprive someone else of a material good.
Digital sharing leaves the original intact and therefore does not substract
any enjoyment or uses from that original object.

In contrast to stealing, ADDING material goods and in so doing
causing possible loss of profits to someone else
is called competition.

Someone needs to be the poster child, and we need the EFF and others to set up funds to fight them.

And thanks for taking the trouble to write this excellent summary.

Cheers!

Enter Rosa Parks. When she refused to give up her seat she was arrested. Nixon paid her bail. It was Jo Ann Robinson who made posters to hand out urging blacks to stay off the buses the next Monday when Rosa Parks case was to go before the court. That night Ministers (including Martin Luther King) got together to discuss the planned boycott, those Ministers agreed to bring the boycott up at their sermons on Sunday. The protest was a success on Monday and continued on to become a boycott.

While the boycott was going on there was an agreement with the taxi company to only charge blacks a 10 cent fare (same as what the bus fare was). City Council got wind of it and ordered that any black cab driver not charging a minimum of 45 cents would be prosecuted. When it looked like hundreds of blacks would have no way to get around the Montgomery Improvement Association (formed by the black community - Martin Luther King being the president) got together and formed a “private-taxi” plan where blacks who had cars drove blacks without to work or other places they needed to get to. Some churches even purchased vehicles to help out - calling them “rolling churches” They formed a transportation commitee to oversee the logistics of making the plan work.

The white community stopped at nothing to try and stop the boycott. Initially trying such things as convincing some Ministers to tell their parishoners the boycott was over, leaking reports to the press, bombing both Nixon’s and King’s residences - when all of that didn’t work they tried arresting blacks for violating a law that prohibited boycotts. They had also tried cancelling the insurance on the cars purchased by the churches many time until they found an insurance company in Atlanta that would give the black insurance.

What is interesting to me about Mongomery and using it as an example of a “worse evil” is that in the RIAA’s and Montgomery’s case it was a fight about ideas. In both cases you have one side pitted in a battle against the other. In both instances life and limb isn’t threatened (Montogomery was a fight about segregation). In both instances it is (or was) against the law to do what these people did. In both instances the more “powerful” did everything in their power to prevent the less powerful from succeeding.

What p2p is missing is a Rosa Parks, E.D. Nixon, Martin Luther King and hundreds of people willing to sticks their necks out to fight for what is right. It’s why in some regards the RIAA et al have been partially successful so far.

-Anne