The Revolutionary's Journal: Repost: how the regime will crumble

Until we have nothing left but locked down hardware which self-destructs in response to attempts to study it, distributors can not stop prevent the willing from liberating the information.

Until neighbors are paid off to report neighbors, brothers to report brothers, distributors can not prevent the willing from liberating the information.

Sharing this information over p2p networks I believe is too dangerous. It is far too easy for you to be found, and sentenced to have your future destroyed, without you having accomplished anything. It is too impersonal. To many people, you are just an IP address.

What is far more dangerous to the existing "intellectual property" regime is the in person swapping of the physical media. When you go over to your neighbor's house or apartment for an evening to watch a movie, what if you were to bring copies of the latest DVDs you have bought? Maybe you'll watch one or two of them. What if when you are heading home you say, "Oh, just go ahead and keep them." Who is going to turn your offer down? It's just like being offered money or a gift. They will take it if for no other reason than that they don't want to offend you or seem unfriendly.

It is the widespread practicing of this very personal form of infringement which will spell the end of the corporate "intellectual property" regime.

Because unlike electronic copying, when you look your friend or your neighbor in the face, who has just given you a gift as a fellow person and as a friend and a neighbor, they can not then look at you and say, "Communist!", or "Theif!".

It is against their every intuition to do so, because you aren't just an IP address in a newspaper or court brief. You are their friend and their neighbor in the flesh.

I think that this would have significantly more intuitive appeal to people than the current issues which often seem to focus on electronic sharing.

Or maybe it's just a matter of waiting 20 years until we have middle aged people who have known p2p swapping all of their lives.