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.

The following was offtopic for the story, "Renegade Reverse Engineering - John Woo Style". I am reposting it below:

No, not, "Where to we stand on the matter of the MPAA?" Where do I stand and where do you stand on the matter of the MPAA?

I would urge everyone to, when then find themselves facing the dilema of whether or not to financially support the MPAA, to not just say, "Oh, isn't that funny; yesterday we hated them, and today we will support them," and shrug off the matter.

If you generally accept the business practices of the MPAA and member studios, peace be upon you, but I can offer you nothing further. If not:

Continuing financial support of these studios by purchasing admission tickets leaves room to send no message other than the message that you accept their content, that you accept their social practices, and that you accept their business practices. The ticket stub does not feature a check box reading, "While I am financially supporting the MPAA and member studios, I am profoundly disturbed by social and business practices," by which you can send any message other than than your consent, your acceptance, and your appreciation.

Films are not food, water, or shelter; they are not medicine needed for your dying significant other. If you find the social and business practices of the MPAA and member studios to be profoundly disturbing, then you have no excuse to continue to financially support these entities.

This is little different, in principle, than the situation with clothing and other apparel made by workers who are seriously physically, socially, and economically exploited. In both cases, seriouslly exploitive and morally reprehensible institutions and laws exist in the society in which these attitudes and practices exist and occur, and it is these very institutions and laws which explicitly enable and endorse these attitudes and practices.

Yet, there is more. Not only when you purchase admission tickets and personal media do you provide financial support to the MPAA and member studioes, but when you do so you also publically advocate the cultural acceptance of their social and business practices by openly expressing your consent, acceptance, and appreciation as you publically provide your financial support. Because you have no excuse, other members of society have reason to draw no other conclusion than this.

Please ask yourself, "Do I financially support and thereby publically endorse the MPAA by purchasing admission tickets because their content is superb and without doing so I would feel unfulfilled and suffer a serious degredation in the quality of my life, or do I financially support and thereby publically endorse these entities foremost because, although I find their social and business practices to be profoundly disturbing, going along with existing cultural norms prevalent in my social and peer groups is easier than changing them, or fighting them?"

To another point, I also do realize the potential hypocrisy of posting this from a computer, no doubt containing parts made in those very circumstances I have spoken out against.

To this I say:

This world is a filthy place; all who touch it receive its mark and blemish upon themselves. But I exhort you friends, let these be the scars of battle, and not the brand of complacency.