Try to resist the urge to twist the issue. A lot of slippery-slope arguments are based on irrelevant premises.
case and point:

Yes - it it illegal to play music without a proper license if you are a (business owner) or public institution. That means in stores, resturants, cabs, public transportation and even building elevators.

Music and Videos are licensed for [personal] enjoyment/consumption not [public] performances. Therefore, what you do in the [privacy] of your own home is your business. This whole issue of piracy is the result of people taking the concept of privacy to mean, --in the privacy of their own homes which include a computer that is hooked up to the Internet=(Public).

Simply said, you have limited rights to privacy when you do things in public. You put music on your computer that is hooked up to the internet and more importantly connected to a file sharing service which makes your machine a server and then you specify these files (music/videos) to be shared. At this point you are willfully contributing to copyright infringment / piracy

a) because you as an individual were not licensed to distribute the content in this fashion. No place in any of the documentation / license agreement is it said that your personal enjoyment includes [copying and distributing the content on the Internet.]


b) Part of your agreement with your ISP is that you would not use the connection they are leasing to you (notice it is not private ) to do such things i.e. conduct illegal activities.

I could go on but I would only be repeating that which I have already said elsewhere.

As for who knows? Pay attention I'm only going to say this once.... Me, ISPs, Lawyers, the RIAA, MPAA and most business owners and many in the general public. Those that don't know are:

a) ignorant

b) misinformed

c) looking for ways to rationalize doing what they want to do. (If you don't care about the rules just do what you want but don't be surprised when it's time to be held accountable.)


As for irrelevant premises,

a) If someone could electronically push play on your computers CD player, First, that is primarily a security related issue and is not related to copyright infringement. Secondly, if they could do such a thing --- which I'm sure is possible They, wouldn't be able to hear the music only you would if you were sitting at your computer. ??????


b) It depends on if that room is in the (privacy) of your home, car. (see paragraph 2 above) and if so, how is that relevant to this issue of transmitting copyrighted information over the public Internet?


c) See b) above -- again how is this relevant to transmitting copyrighted works over the public internet without authorization?

I Hope that this helps to put things in prospective for you.

__________________
Lee Evans, President
LeeWare Development
http://www.leeware.com