All of your arguments here are good ones, and you do a pretty good job of intellectually justifying pirating. But, I can go to YouTube right now and listen to an audiobook that was written by a friend of mine. Yeah, people aren't breaking into his house and stealing his book, but they are using it for entertainment while not paying for it while it is protected under copyright law. Maybe it's not classical theft, but it is a violation of copyright which can be a felony crime. DMCA's provisions are a load of crap and don't provide remuneration for violations. YouTube is only "legal" because the system has failed. Most criminals cook up elaborate justifications for their crimes, but no twisting of words will ever trump the truth. The truth here is that if someone works to create something entertaining or useful, and chooses to copyright it, the copyright should be respected and protected. Otherwise, why pretend that we have copyrights, patents, trademarks, individual identities, personal property, etc.? I know, let's just let the government own everything! That would magically make everyone equal right? Yeah, that's a society I want to live in. One where everything is free yet there is no freedom.

Actually, copyright law sets the precedent that publishing someone else's copyrighted material is indeed stealing and many people have spent time behind bars getting their asses pounded because they thought (stupidly) as you do.

Your post is derived from a highly twisted sense of ethics. Knock-offs are a form of stealing. What your friend is doing is different because he's replicating something unobtainable as an homage, not making a knock-off cars to sell to his friends. For example, Gibson Guitars are overpriced so Chinese factories make cheap knock offs of Les Pauls and sell them for 10% what Gibson does. That is copying and it is stealing. So you're just plain wrong in your thinking.

If I buy a DVD and copy it for a friend that is stealing. It's making two copies out of one when the publisher is selling *copies*. Yes, the technology allows us to pirate easily, but that doesn't mean we should. We also have the technology to copy people's identities online, should we do that simply because we can?

The bigger problem is companies that profit from providing copies of other's work without permission. YouTube is an illegal business. If you or I were to try to do what YouTube does we'd be shut down, sued, fined, and possibly jailed as pirates.

Why the personal attack? You can't debate an issue without name calling? Grow up and learn that there are many views of the world beyond your own limited perception of it.

Corporations are the sum of their people. People like you and me, unless you're a trust fund kid who has no idea what it's like to work for someone else to make a living. I don't feel bad for people who abuse capitalism, but I do feel bad for people who work really hard on something only to have it stolen by people with zero ethics and an entitlement complex. I write mobile apps and for every paid download I get there are 1000 illegal downloads. I charge no more than 99c for my apps. What kind of loser does one have to be to steal a 99c item from an indie content provider??? The people sharing and downloading are just as much crooks as corp execs.

Google (YouTube), and dozens of other major sites are in clear violation of long standing copyright law. Millions of people rely on those laws to protect their industries and livelihood. Now it's a content wild west where anything goes. When there is blatant criminal activity in progress the authorities do have the right to stop the activity before there is a trial. I like free content as much as anyone else, but not at someone else's expense. Who's more greedy? The corporations who want to make a buck on content, or the fans who want it for free? There's got to be some middle ground where everyone wins.

This isn't news. It's common sense. Of course people and their passwords are the weakest link. Same thing in physical space. You can have the best lock in the world, but if you make copies of the key and are careless with them you'll get robbed.

AAA game studios are totally missing the point. Angry Birds is a huge hit across multiple platforms and it is single player. It's also more fun than 90% of the AAA titles available. Sales numbers don't lie. This guy should be investing in the single player experience so serious gamers, who recognize genres beyond "first person shooter", have engaging games to buy and play. Seriously, running around a maze of war-torn buildings looking for friends to frag is seriously tired and boring these days. There are some gems, but AAA titles are so dumbed down and predictable now that the fun factor has been diluted to the point where the games sometimes feel more like work than play.

She's a harmless MILF. Smarter than Obama though.

I've been looking for a good reason to quit using the internet. Maybe the borgification of today's web will lead to better, more secure things in the future.

Datacenters + Moonshine = Downtime.

PHP. But, I'd recommend learning programming/software engineering concepts using a variety of languages. When I was starting out many decades ago it was hard to get one's hands on a compiler and even harder to get time on an actual machine. These days you can get solid compilers or interpreters for most every language 100% FREE. If you understand how computers work, how programs are written, compiled, or interpreted, and you have a decent mind for math and problem solving you should be able to learn any language you want to quickly.

Nicely put.

It just chaps my hide that statements like this get scored 5 "insightful". Sounds like someone is jealous that their life sucks while others are living it up off of grandpa's J.R. Ewing-style success. I see by the lame sig that you are also a liberal. That explains your lack of ethics, wit, and class.

Nice rebuttal. I agree that students get a dose of everything while at school. Maybe that's why we have such a divided nation. Some people are inclined to go left and others go right. It's all good though. I'll try to keep my feet planted somewhere in the middle.

Ok, this response if fragmented, but I had a lot to cover and not much time. Good response by the way. You make some good points. I knew that list wouldn't be popular but it is true. I come from the very hive of liberalism (San Francisco) and spent three decades in high tech and academia so I'm not some Gomer who's never left the farm. I've seen what decades of liberal policies have done to our nation, and especially california (which is basically a third-world state at this point). I have lots of gay friends and many liberal friends. I'm also aware of how unions work and how the left panders to them. The child molester thing has to do with NAMBLA which is supported by the left, not the right. The "rich" bosses generally work harder and carry more responsibility than the worker. Yes there are board-room abuses, but for the most part the average CEO works harder and longer than their employees do. Yes, the environment is a SUPER left thing. But, I've never met a conservative who wanted to ruin the environment, they just want to manage it responsibly without losing our edge as a superpower to countries like China that could give a rat's ass about the environment. Leftists like Al Gore used the environment for personal gain and blackmailed companies with his influence over popular opinion. That's low. All the lefties I know have one thing in common. They are angry and jealous that they are not someone else. Stereotypes are, at least somewhat true. That is why they are stereotypes.