P2P Users Are Unindicted Federal Felons
from the crime-and-punishment dept
Declan McCullough is worried that the US Justice Department, with the help of the RIAA, is getting ready to charge file sharers as federal criminals for violating the No Electronic Theft Act. There is quite a distinction between the music industry filing a civil suit against people they feel are pirating music and them having the government do their dirty work for them. As the article points out, plenty of people who use file sharing software are now "unindicted federal felons", and probably don't realize it. Of course, all this could be solved if the music industry ever woke up and realized that they're destroying their own business by attacking their own customers.
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It will just make it more exciting
Legislating music file sharing into criminal behaviour will only make it more thrilling for kids to do. The music industry *fosters* a culture of rebellion, promoting gangsta rap, etc. etc. And then they expect the kids to obey them? It's like putting a sign on a button saying "don't touch this"!
And with all the advances in MP3 file sharing and now 32mb "keychains" and the like, even in the worst case scenerio kids will just do what we did back in The Day - they'll use the SneakerNet to trade files at school, on the bus, etc. It's still easier than ever to swap songs, burn your own custom CD's for your friends, and so on and so on.
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pirating is the shiznit boi
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