Somehow people got the idea that art is free, that they have a right to enjoy their favorite bands and TV shows without paying a dime. Making mix CDs and burning your friend the occasional CD is not terrible, and when copyright infringement occurs on this level I think most artists and executives are fine with it. It is when it becomes this massive, anonymous, continent-crossing beast that I think they get worried. And rightly so. I know people who never buy any of their music. As an artist I find this frightening. Producing art takes a great deal of time and energy. Most of us are not wealthy. Sure, entertainment corporations might fuck us in the ass, but at least they give us a reach-around; snotty art thieves (for that is what they are) not only won't reach around but get offended that you even asked and infringed upon their right to hammer you in the exit chute for free. Well, you know what, neither I nor any other artist likes to be refused a reach-around and eventually we'll stop producing our product. Art. So don't be a prick. Can it with your whiny "revolution against corporations" (trans.: theft) and pay for your fucking entertainment! If you want free entertainment, grab the lube, drop trou and type "tit" into a search engine, you fucking dilheads!

-- Avram Klein

The following quote made me laugh:

Even [Talal Shamoon, executive vice president of InterTrust] admits that we're in the midst of an "ugly transition period." Everyone is dreaming of a time "when content exists in the air and follows you around," he says. "I want to be able to walk into a hotel room and have it realize it's me and let me watch my movies from home."

It's ironic that the people who have a vested interest in seeing more restrictive content-control laws put into place, still want to have things made easier or cheaper for themselves, while denying that right to others. In the above quote, Mr. Shamoon is hoping for the day when his own paid-for content is available to him in a hotel room. Since when have hotels ever expressed a desire for their customers to obtain services or content for free? If I own a copy of a movie or pay for premium cable content at home, the hotel doesn't grant me free access to their copy of the same content. I have to pay them. Similarly, I may own a box of Junior Mints or have a wonderful bottle of Chablis, but that doesn't mean I am allowed to enjoy my Junior Mints at the local Cineplex or drink my wine at a restaurant.

Mr. Shamoon is certainly welcome to try to acquire his 30 pieces of silver, but that won't prevent others from gouging him in their turn. The "ugly transition period" he refers to is not due to unsolved technological issues, it's due to the ugly nature of the thinking being entertained by those in power.

-- Kurt Scherer

Your otherwise brilliant article left out an important possible ramification of the SSSCA: It could make it a crime for indie bands to burn their own CDs or upload MP3s to the Web without adding approved (and possibly expensive) encoding. One can easily see why the payola-hungry radio conglomerates would be eager to have that sort of legislation passed: Listen to what we tell you to, or else.

Point #2: Congress can pass all the brilliant legislation they want, but how are they going to enforce it when someone's hosting their pirated copy of "Lord of the Rings" from a server physically located on the island of Tuvalu?

-- Ken Mondschein

Congressional authority with respect to copyright, copy protection, etc., is set by the text of that Supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution of the United States, which grants the power as follows:

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries..."

Note that restriction, "limited times." Such measures as those espoused by the existing DMCA and the proposed SSSCA are legal only if they satisfy the following two conditions:

1) Protection MUST expire upon expiration of copyright; and

2) Protection MUST be forbidden for non-copyright (i.e., public domain) materials.

I do not see either of those conditions required in the existing DMCA or the proposed SSSCA. Both of these acts are unconstitutional on their faces, and those congressmen, presidents, and judges who support them are lawbreakers who are violating their oaths of office, as well.

-- Carlie J. Coats Jr., Ph.D.

The legal freedoms at risk, as a result of the ever-present arguments from the corporate entertainment moguls and their greedy conglomerates, have never before presented a more serious threat to all law-abiding and taxpaying citizens of a free democratic society.

Will these paranoid and self-serving executives ever see the light and realize that they are poisoning their own families' food supply? Not anytime soon I am sure, but only when they (duh!) realize that the current drop-off in entertainment industry revenue (the result of uncompelling disposable content, and consumer disgust with predatory pricing practices), will in retrospect appear like the good ol' days as consumers shun their products altogether.

Consumers are not as stupid as these arrogant spoilers believe -- not by a long shot. We will band together to fight back with our most effective weapon -- our wallets against their bottom lines.

And then after it is far too late and more than a few dollar short, we will again be subjected to the pitiful scenario of overcompensated executives pleading for the taxpayers to bail their ruined industries out at no expense to themselves.

Goodbye to them all and good riddance! Perhaps they are actually doing the public a favor.

Only time will tell.

-- Thomas Acuna

I work from home and I like to listen to my CDs on my PC while I work. My CDs are all legitimate -- I'm not that techno-savvy and I don't have an MP3 player, or even a CD player in my car. I'm probably the consumer that the media companies most have to worry about. Why? Because I've brought a couple of CDs that won't play in my PC. I don't know why. Probably copyright protection. I don't complain. I don't take them back. I just vow that I will never buy any CDs by that artist ever again. It's all very well to put in all this copyright protection but I guarantee there's a lot of people like me who just go, "Oh well, I won't buy it again."

It's all very nice to own the copyright on a piece of music but it's totally pointless if no one's prepared to pay for it. The music industry, in a bid to stop illegal copying, may find their legitimate market simply decides stop buying. If that happens I imagine pirating will seem a minor problem in comparison.

-- Carol Harris

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