When George Orwell wrote 1984 one of the most prescient aspects of the tale was his discussion of how language is used to make it difficult to think outside the party line which invariably was that black was white - if Orwell could see Hilary Rosen and the RIAA in action how horrified he'd surely feel

Hilary argues that legalising hacking the computers of people using p2p software is only 'fair' given that 'pirates' are stealing money from starving artists that she and RIAA are working hard to nurture and that the majors are being prevented from developing internet based services because companies like LW are drawing away customers from the 'legitimate' services the majors want to offer

its an ugly joke !!! - RIAA etc have devoted huge resources to attacking their own client base with the longer term aim of making the gnutella network unusable and thereby forcing people back into the situation of having to pay exorbitant amounts of money to kiss the loathsome beast that is their preferred business model

The really awful aspect of it all is just how good at saying black is white Hilary actually is - way good enough to fool the average person who is not interested enough in the issues to take the time to get across it all

To be as good at it as she is Hilary MUST know what she's doing - its almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that she's decided 'lifes not a rehersal' and doing what she does means being unbelievably well paid and having a superbly comfortable life for herself and her family -

I truly hope that at 2 am some dark and lonely nights she finds herself reflecting on what she's doing and is ashamed

bad_vlad

Would you mind then explaining your views on international copyright laws? Or the extent of "fair use"? I imagine this woman sleeps as well at night as you do. We all compose narratives around ambiguous situations so that we are invariably the hero.

I find it amusing the high moral stance some people take as the adversarial relationship between the music industry and consumers increases. I personally have bought far more CD's since I started stealing it, and I can't imagine that the industry doesn't realize this. Conflicts, however, always obscure the truth, which is rarely black and white in the first place.

I noticed that Austrailia struck a blow for the consumer, at least in Oz, by denying Sony certain proprietary rights, while the UK upheld a similar suit. It will be interesting how this all comes out.

sadly I too am pretty sure Hilary sleeps just fine at night (in silk sheets perhaps) but I'd still love to see her accept the challenge of a head to head public debate on the ethics of p2p versus the ethics of the companies she represents

re your other points: - yes here in Aus Sony just lost a court case that means its now legal to insert a chip in playstations that lets you make and play home burned CD copies and play CD's that were bought outside the designated 'region' (ie you can now legally use something legaly bought in Europe or America) - they also lost in their claim that people selling copies were selling 'fakes' (on the grounds that the copies were so obviously copies nobody could possible be fooled into thinking they were buying the real thing) - the loss to Sony is really only symbolic - the chipping was being advertised and done very openly anyway

as to 'fair use' etc - of course I accept that p2p means copywrite breaching - the point though is that

(1) the majors use and have extended copywrite in a bloody minded attempt to force consumers to minimize what they access and maximize what they pay for

(2) p2p sharing arguably at least increases rather than decreases actual sales (every download is NOT a lost sale and does anyone seriously think Radiohead would've made the charts if all those files weren't swishing around the net for months before the oficial release)

(3) if the state attempts to protect private profit making interests to the extent that extraordinarily widely accepted practices are criminalised all you achieve is making people hold the law in contempt - which - is a dangerous thing to do in free and civil societies that depend upon willing acceptance of the rule of law rather than forced submission to the rule of law