While I agree with you, to an extent, that software is a different story, it's more just the characters getting shiny new names and the plot adds a twist or two.

Ultimately, software is just like a novel/song/movie/picture in that it's a creative work, and the only real thing that can be expected for the creator's compensation is the equipment cost to build the software and the work hours spent to put the whole thing together. As long as those costs get paid for by those wanting to use the app, there's really no difference between it and any other form of creative work, with the only major twist being the non-entertainment aspects of the software market. Even then, unless you find a group of developers that get paid based primarily on the sales of the software they created (or helped create), you're not actually paying the creators for their creativity beyond the time spent on their part in the whole thing. Just look at the software industry and at how many developers and other creative types are little more than salaried workers that don't get paid more when their creative efforts significantly increase sales or profits.

Don't get me wrong, I support any creative person's desire to earn a living off of their creativity and ideas alone, but it's only recently in the grand history of the world that anyone has actually come to expect to make money off of nothing more than an idea or concept. Before that it was all in the ideas that could be embedded into or onto physical objects.

For any non-physical item that strongly relies on some creative component, be it artwork, music, literature, or software, the same concepts should be brought into play, and they should all be treated equally. They are all works that are created, and all are primarily groupings of non-physical elements that differ from each item to the next solely by those non-physical attributes. And no, I won't count groupings of colored dots displayed on a general-purpose display to constitute a physical element -- I count the screen itself as such, but not the image displayed when using it.

The big question that should be asked is whether or not the actual creators are paid when money is spent on the finished product, and how much of it goes to people who had little to nothing to do with the creation itself. The more that goes to those non-creative types, the more they tend to demand, and the less they're willing to give up to the creators. This is why a lot of people want to feel insulted when a movie or song or whatnot has its copyright infringed. It's not because they care about the creators, but that they want their cut of someone else's work, and they're willing to fight for that scrap of something substantial that they don't need to work for. That, or they're pissed off because they spent money on something other people have figured out how to get without needing to pay for it and didn't share... it's probably more of the latter than the former, or they're a shill.

Ultimately, do I want to make money solely based on my creative thoughts? Yes. Do I also want to be able to make money simply by breathing? Sure! There's no reason not to so long as someone is willing to pay money for it. Now, do I expect to make money solely based on my creative thoughts? No. That would be stupid. Do I have the right to make money off of nothing more than my creative thinking? No. Do I have the right to try making money off of nothing more than my creative thinking? Sure, just as I have the right to try to turn used kitty litter into gold using nothing more than an old sock and a dirty toothbrush. I can't expect to be able to actually do it, and it's likely to smell bad, and people will likely be less willing to stand near me due to the lingering odor, but I can still try for the kitty litter to gold conversion. Similarly, creative people can still try for the post-creativity income on their work.

And you decided to only look at the parallels I drew to call them a slippery slope, when it was an honest comparison between resource types versus potential uses. To say that the primary use for the money the students get will be the purchase of weapons and illegal drugs is exactly the same as saying that the same students buying pencils will use them to stab people with.

It can easily be said that the majority of that money given to those students may be spent frivolously, but it will likely be spent to get something their families may be unable or unwilling to spend money on otherwise. Some might spend the money on drugs and/or weapons, but the majority will use the money for the purchase of legal goods and services regardless of their "disadvantaged" status. To say otherwise is to promote a stereotype based on little more than the term "disadvantaged" and maybe a geographic area.

Therefore, your argument relies heavily on those fringe cases and potential motives in order to work properly. The majority of people in any given area are likely to be law-abiding individuals, otherwise they wouldn't be in that area for very long or the laws would have been changed to better accommodate the preferences of area residents.

What about the adults who use their paychecks to buy drugs and/or weapons?

If you're going to scrap an idea, don't do it because of the fringe cases. If we did that for everything, we wouldn't have anything due to the potential for use in actions that are considered unacceptable or illegal. You could kill someone with a pencil. Does that mean we should ban all pencils because they might be used to commit murder? What about hammers or bricks? Kitchen knives have also been used to commit murders, as has rope or any number of other things just laying about. Should they also be prohibited due to the potential for abuse?

If the program works as it is intended, and the people in the program obey existing laws about what they spend their money on, then more power to those who benefit while the program is being enacted.

I'd say that teachers/instructors should also benefit from the performance of their students by way of test-based bonuses. Their students do well, they do well. Their students do poorly, they don't get the bonus and now have more incentive to ensure that their students can learn the material come the next test cycle.

It's not that difficult to understand how a rewards-based system will show results. Unfortunately it doesn't fit in too well with the Socialistic format of the school system that says "it doesn't matter how well you or your peers do, you all get the same pittance and you should feel honored that you get to participate and we give you anything at all." I'd prefer a more Capitalistic approach, where you earn more when you work harder. This cash-for-grades approach is also better suited to showing how hard work can pay off.

The ones who picked on me weren't just the athletes. Oh, they sometimes got in on the fun as well, but the majority of the ridicule came from the majority of students who couldn't be bothered to actually ask questions and didn't care about anything other than getting the instructor's attention away from them. It wasn't until I hit college that I didn't have to always be wary of people trying to get close to me; trying to get close so they could do more damage to my self-esteem or my physical well-being. Most of the kids in my school had no problem laughing at the kid who asked questions in class, and they had no problems with ridiculing anyone who actually wanted to understand the material being taught. Nor did they have much of a problem in providing slapstick entertainment for nearby students while in the hallways at the expense of the inquisitive student.

Some of the instructors who actually enjoyed teaching and desired to help the students who wanted to learn couldn't easily counteract that level and type of environmental pressure. From my understanding, that environment has only become worse over time as many of the students entering college now seem to expect to just breeze through whatever classes they take, and if they can't because the instructor won't let them, they just find another instructor who teaches the course the next semester. These are the same students willing to take the work of others and claim it as their own, then complain that they get treated unfairly when they get caught (yes, this happened to me; yes, the instructor caught the offender; and yes, I aced that class).

Frighteningly, I was actually told, by a professor, directly to my face, that I was incapable of making decisions that concerned my beliefs and my understanding of the world around me. That he would tell me when I was ready to make such decisions. This was in my senior year of my BS degree, and the instructor was one for a required course. Another instructor (the department head for the entire CS program) actually told me that those in my major weren't really being taught the field; that we were only there for the "Computer Science Experience," and not to expect that to change. I had, for years by that point, made a point to discuss the classes with my instructors, and the only saving grace was that I had a few actually competent and caring instructors and I managed to make a decent showing by avoiding those who didn't care about anything more than the paycheck, the power, and the prestige.

Oh, I fully appreciate my college education -- or at least, the piece of paper that came with it -- it's what allowed me to qualify for the job I now have. Granted, I learned very little of the field I studied from the actual coursework, and more from my own interests and on-the-job training. And the work that went into getting that piece of paper didn't actually do anything to prepare me for a real working environment where all of those models and theories that are expected to be put into practice but usually aren't. The problem came when I actually had to have the piece of paper before I would even be considered for a job like what I currently hold. The policies in place for most employers I've tried to find work with tend to ignore anyone who doesn't meet their minimum requirements, and that's a Bachelor's or greater, no exceptions. You have eight years in the field? They might consider you, but that kid with the shiny new BS is more than likely to be higher on the list than you. All the degree does is show is that you're willing to spend money you probably don't have to get something that was likely already worthless long before you get it.

The important thing I took away from my college education is that I came to understand my beliefs -- be they social, economic, religious, or political -- and why I am willing to hold to them even though I was constantly bombarded with constant claims that I was wrong. What I believed before didn't matter, even if it was in line with what was being taught, I was still wrong. I now better understand my capabilities and shortcomings with respect to educational institutions, and I learned a little more about what my peers have come to expect from life and the people around them. I also have come to understand how we, as educated people, aren't supposed to actually think about anything (React? Yes. Think? No.) unless we've been told to think about it, and even then we're only supposed to think about it in certain ways. I've also come to understand just how pervasive that type of indoctrination is and what it's doing to the society as a whole. The bar is constantly being lowered, and the students still keep barely rising to get over it (if they even try that hard), and that's exactly what they are being encouraged to do: lower their standards for achievement and socialize, socialize, socialize.

There was no show in your response. There was no why. There was only your interpretation, and that involved not much more than the ability to problem-solve in a generic way which proved the GP's point. You jumped directly from the GP's grades 1-12 setting (7th was the actual number given) to a college/university setting. And those tend to be vastly different learning environments.

To me, it seems the problem is not in the universities and colleges, but in the lower grades. Those grades where you "do what you're told." The biggest problem with being constantly told what to do, is that you don't really see the point in thinking for yourself, and will instead tend to rely on others to get anything done. That's where the college kids who are still in the "do what you're told" mindset run into problems. Critical thinking and problem solving aren't things that can be memorized, they have to be learned, understood, and applied.

As a former public school student, I see how my entire early educational life was spent being considered as not much more than another faceless meat-bag that couldn't (or wasn't allowed to) reason its way out of an empty room with no windows and a single, open door with what we were expected to "learn." In fact, even some of my university instructors held the mindset that their students were incapable of rational thought and were devoid of any significant problem-solving skills. All of the understanding, BS detection, and true reasoning I've come to use regularly came from the time spent out of the classroom during those early years. That time spent with my parents and other adults that I had contact with taught me all of that. The only thing I learned from other children I regularly had contact with was how to act like a child and how to rely on others to do all of my thinking and as much of my work for me... and how to be belittled and picked on by my peers for trying to put into practice those skills I picked up from the adults in my life.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the GP learned to understand the common language in use in that area, but I'll guarantee that most of that learning wasn't classroom-related. We tend to learn more by what we're exposed to at home than what we learn in school. Things like word usage and sentence construction come more from home and family life than from a classroom.

The funny thing is that most content creators already have patrons paying their way. If you work for a company as a software developer, or work for a production studio drawing or performing, then those respective companies are the patrons.

The original 7 year copyright was considered an okay compromise because it was relatively short, but was still long enough to allow the creator to potentially earn enough to live off while they held the copyright, as well as having a means to control how much and how far their work spread during that time frame. As soon as that time frame was up, the formerly copyrighted content belonged to everyone and it could be used, duplicated, or sold by anyone and everyone. It promoted a sense of community and cultural contribution to everything creative in the community and society at large.

The only thing preventing the creator from duplicating and selling that work was an agreement with their patron to not do so without the patron's consent. The patron was ultimately responsible for adhering to the creator's wishes with regards to the duplication and distribution of the work that was created so long as they didn't go against the initial arrangement with regards to the uniqueness of the work. Both parties held equal power over the distribution and reproduction of the work, with a bit more freedom given to the creator as they had the ability to create other, similar works as they saw fit. All that, thanks to the patrons who could afford to bankroll the creator while they were doing the creating.

While that model worked out decently for all involved while the common artisan didn't have ready or easy access to the means of reproduction and distribution, it no longer works out that way. The problem is that these days, the balance of power rests more with the patrons than the creators, and so we have companies holding the copyrights to works they didn't actually put any actual effort into creating beyond a vague "I'd like something like..." for the creator to deal with. Once those works are paid for, usually through a mechanism such as a wage/salary (almost always a statement that more creative effort is expected to be forthcoming) or contract (short-term or one-time effort), the modern patrons have set it up so that the artists, once paid for their work, get nothing more than a pittance for the continued use of their work.

For musicians and songwriters it's a "Thanks for the song and here's an exceedingly small percentage of the total profit we re-sell your work for. Be lucky we're giving you that, 'cuz if it wasn't in the contract you'd get nothing."

For software developers it's more like "Thanks for the non-overtime 80-hour weeks you've put in to make the software worth multiple millions of dollars in annual revenue, here's your standard bi-weekly paycheck (no raises this year, recession, you understand) and we'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning when you'll be tasked with making us even more money by building another application that's also going to be worth millions to the company."

I'd love to see a return to the original arrangement where the actual creators held the power and the patrons had to negotiate with the creators to get access to the content.

Actually, the argument is sound, if slightly off in that the examples given are analog and/or temporary in nature. The real argument is where all of these incidents and instances are conveyed in a digital format:

There are people writing novels and making them available online at no cost these days (Webcomics, like Megatokyo, that have published hardcopy books, or a novel called "John Dies at the End" come easily to mind). Add in things like fanfiction and you get even more potential issues of copyright ownership and assignment that get added to the mix.

Instead, use a group of news articles that come from a newspaper's main webpage that they didn't charge for. The New York Times does this, as do many others, while they still offer subscriptions and hard-copies at a cost.

Some instructors and researchers write their own texts and provide them for students to use at no cost in an electronic form. Heck, some full-fledged book companies do this as well (ever hear of Microsoft Press?).

A home-made youtube video with a song playing in the background. A sound file embedded in a webpage and played on page-load, or How 'bout a picture that you need to download to view the page properly. It all still counts as incidental and non-intentional for the viewer.

All of these could be considered non-temporary since bits and bytes are not "lent items." There is nothing that forces the downloaded bits to go away as soon as you close the browser window, or the media player, or any other means that the content is accessed. And since all data is effectively copyrighted by default, it is automatically assumed that someone created it and holds a copyright for it, and if it can be downloaded then it becomes subject to this law.

The issue is not that the law attempts to tax a sold item, but more that a tax is levied on an item with no dollar amount directly associated with it. For example, say you charge a fee for content you provide, this law obligates me to pay a tax on similar content I download from another person that doesn't charge for their content, and that tax will be for the same amount that you set for your content. This is not so much a tax at that point, but a fine for not being charged anything for that other user's content.

If I make a movie, and it looks like a professional job, and I make it available for download to anyone who wants it, does that mean everyone who downloads it should be made to pay taxes on "a similar item of equivalent quality" that costs $50? If I went and made my own talk show and provided the sessions for free download because I only do it for fun, does that mean that my listeners have to pay the taxes equivalent to, say, Rush Limbaugh's radio show and it's subscription fees for downloaded content?

My '94 Metro got 45MPG with minimal maintenance (as in: I didn't do it as often as I should have)... and it liked to burn a bit of oil in the last year before I donated it to a nearby tech school (for a nice tax deduction of roughly four times the KBB value of the car).

I also found that if I increased the airflow through the cabin a bit by venting some of the cabin air out the back end (those latch-lock rear windows: just let one swing loose), you could increase the fuel economy by 5-15 MPG, easy. I told this to a friend of mine who had a slightly newer Metro with the latch-lock rear windows, and he went from 45MPG to a sustained average of 55MPG.

I've been meaning to figure out who bought out Geo (I think it was Chevrolet) and mention it to 'em... They could have cornered the efficiency market if they hadn't kept trying to make it more like the rest of their vehicle lines.

But, for that gas mileage, I'd get another Metro, even if it was considered a "throw-away" car.

The only good thing about the government providing something is that they are distributing the cost of that something so that no one person is paying for all of it. This is fine for a public service like fire, police, military, roads, etc. but this is not good for something that only a select group of people are to receive.

Why should I pay for your internet connection, or your car, or your house. Unless it becomes public property, there should be no provision for it beyond an enforced allowance of access. You can't be denied the ability to use the roads or call the police, or request that the fire department come and put out the fire in your house or yard. But then again, you also don't have to be home to make the same request. You could be on the highway and call in for help and you'll have both the police and fire department along as soon as they are able. Try making the same claim for your internet or telephone service providers, or even your car dealership or corner drug store... good luck.

There are certain things that are provided for use to all taxpayers (and non-taxpayers) by way of taxes, and certain things that are only used by the individual and have no business being paid for by taxes. Someday you may need the fire department or the police while driving on a road in my area, and they'll be as available to help you as they are to help me, and the same would go for me driving in your area. Unless the country is supposed to become one universal, homogenized network access point that would allow your neighbor to use your internet connection regardless of your opinion in the matter, this is a good distinction in how things should be paid for and what should differentiate public and private services. Your internet connection does not affect me, nor does my connection affect you. I shouldn't have to pay for yours, and you shouldn't have to pay for mine. Using tax money to do this would be doing just that.

If you want to pay to set up an internet connection to all of your neighbors and a bunch of other people you've never met, then you're more than free to do so with your own money. Me? I'll be paying for my own internet connection and using as I see fit, and I'm not going to pay for the connection of someone else just to make them happy.

There is also no reason that I should need to make up for paying into taxes that put me into a position where I become "working poor" and can't qualify for the exact same programs that I'm paying taxes to fund. This, while still trying to keep myself and my family solvent. The whole problem here is that there are far too many people who think tax money is "free" money, and heavily taxing the citizenry and businesses has a money-generating effect. I'll tell you right now that it doesn't work that way for most people.

Even though I can't be considered wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, if a person in my community needs the kind of help I can offer, I'd normally have no problem helping as my resources allow once my family is taken care of. But when my resources are artificially reduced through taxes, and I can barely provide for my own household, I've lost the ability to help anybody else, and possibly require help myself. I'm not about to go out and work harder to earn less than I currently am so that someone else can be handed enough to afford a new TV and get more money worth of food assistance than my entire household would dare to dedicate to food as part of a responsible budget. I'm not about to go out and get a second job just so that I can continue to make the same housing payments that I would have had no problem with if I wasn't getting taxed so heavily. I wouldn't need to get a second job to earn enough to get taxed enough to offset the poor planning and wasteful spending habits of others.

So, the whole idea of higher taxes, and more tax-based spending, is basically telling those responsible people being taxed to "work yourself ragged to pay off the debts that others incurred because they constantly refuse to figure out how to act in a responsible manner when it comes to the resources (finances and incurred debt in this case) under their control." I'm sorry that people/companies can't figure out how to balance a checkbook and keep their debt under control, but it's not my responsibility to bail them out when they make poor decisions. I don't like to have my money taken at gun-point (through taxes; Yes, you *can* be fined and sent to prison for not paying what the government demands of you) to pay for the mistakes someone else made. I don't expect you to be punished for something I've done wrong, so why am I expected to be punished financially to pay for the poor management and financial decisions made by someone else entirely?

My household has a budget, and we are currently solvent, but only barely (our entire monthly "entertainment" budget (that money not taken up by the necessities) is somewhere in the $5 range, but the house is paid for for the month, the electricity is still on, the phone still works, and there's still food on the table. Why is it that the people who take responsibility for their own well-being are being told that they should also take responsibility for all of the people out there who can't or won't do the same? Would you like to pay for my housing costs if I were to refuse to? I'd let you as long as you were consistent about doing it. You seem to have no problem with calling me a whiner for not wanting you to have to do it, but you're still willing to push everyone to do it just the same.

Do you really believe that The Pirate Bay was set up for any purpose other than distributing copyrighted files?

Name me one file that is not in some way copyrighted. With the way that any reproducible content is automatically copyrighted in most jurisdictions, there is no possible way for anyone to differentiate such content with anything non-copyrighted without knowing: who made it, where they made it, who holds the copyright for it, who posted it, where the poster got it, where it's posted, where it was posted from, and whether or not is was posted with the intent to distribute by the copyright holder.

The ability to post a response while including a part of an originating comment is, itself, a form of copyright violation. It may be a protected form of it, but it's still a violation of that person's copyright if you didn't get their express permission to do so. So, by your own argument, there is no valid purpose for the links to other internet websites, since every page, every image, and every comment is considered to be under copyright, and you can't access it without becoming an accessory to violating that copyright. That is, unless you already know who posted the content, what laws it falls under, and whether it was posted with the creator's permission and intent to distribute or not.

So to say that the primary purpose of TPB is to infringe copyright, you're absolutely right, and so is slashdot and any other website on the Internet. We make assumptions based on what is most common, and that is that the copyright holder for any given piece of content was the one to make it ready for the particular distribution method used (may it be HTTP, FTP, P2P, sneaker-net, or embedded in/on a physical object) and has authorized that form of distribution. To do otherwise is to assume "guilty until proven innocent" rather than the other way around.

So, is there any significant legal use for a torrent of an infringing file?

The answer to this is the same as the answer to the following question: Is there any significant legal use for a link to a piece of information you can't confirm the copyright status of prior to following the link? If your answer to that question is "no", then you should quickly close your web browser and pretend you've never heard of the Internet for all the good your current opinion will do you.

The people who post whatever content they do to TPB are treated the same as the people who post to this and any other site, as the assumed copyright holder for the content. They are allowed to post whatever they please until it becomes too disruptive to the normal operations of the site or violates the laws in place for the site's host. That is what the case is all about, not whether or not they know about the issue, but whether or not the site owners are to be held responsible for the actions of their users.