I'd say the hypocrisy of RIAA is astounding.

The reason for reducing the copyright times are just because it would enable derivative works. Kind of how Disney took "Cinderella" or other stories in the public domain and made money and new stories out of them.

The hypocrisy comes in when they refuse to ever give stuff back to the public domain.

The people being screwed in this case isn't the heirs to Tolkien it's us. They shouldn't get any money after so many years. They are the true "leeches". That doesn't help or develops our civilization or culture.

Or maybe the RIAA?

1) Boycott
2) If in Sweden, vote for the pirate party in the upcoming election

3) I'm out if ideas...

Of course it's good for the society to be able to communicate freely and easily.

Of course it's good for the general welfare that stuff that can be copied without cost is spread to whomever who wants it.

Why? It's so obvious you really shouldn't need any "research".

It might not be good for a very very small percentage (like 0.00001%) of the population (big record company bosses) but I doubt you (even if you a commercial software developer as you claim) are part of that percentage.

Sweden do have a healty TV/film industry. Problably produces as much TV/film per capita as the US or UK, but still it's not a large country and since we can enjoy UK & US stuff in addition to our own, why shouldn't we be allowed to buy this?

Sweden is (was at least a couple of years ago?) also the third most music exporting country in the world (after US and UK). Britney Spears first album is really Swedish and so on...

So, it's not a matter of "pirate it because we don't produce anything ourselves".

That's (using a vpn or proxy) probably just as illegal in "their" eyes as downloading the content.

Oh, please stop using strange analogies, it's not helping, it's only confusing the issue.

Doing illegal drugs is not file sharing.
A "dark guarded alley" is not VPN.

You even managed to squeeze in som kind of car analogy there :)

It has the function of maintaining your privacy. This is valuble for some people, not because they are breaking the law but because other people, corporations and governments have no business knowing who you are talking/mailing/communicating with in 99,99% of all cases.

They might be aware A robbery is happening/will happen/has happened but to the extent that you are aware a robbery will happen somewhere in the world today.

Sitting and monitoring millions of torrentfiles which in them selves are not the media is impossible.

They have replied to the persons bringing it to their attention by saying "don't talk to us, talk to the persons making the stuff availible". After saying that hundreds of times and still receiving stupid form-letters with pointers to irrelevant US. laws they start responding to them in funny, irreverant and sometimes a bit infantile way.

"Taking a creative work. Ripping it or recording it and distributing it to others without the permission of the creator" = "Taking a creative work. Ripping it or recording it and distributing it to others without the permission of the creator"
and
robbery = robbery

"Everyone should do what they can to protect the creative works and the artists"

I think sharing the creative works are the best way to do this.

BUT even if the reverse was true I think "protecting the creative works and the artists" are not THE top priority of the universe. It isn't as important as other things. Protecting the lives, security and freedom of people are much more important.

Human rights > Record company rights

You're wrong, they are not aware the robbery is happening.

TPB are the persons making the paper where the automatic door-opener is advertised.

So, we should'nt prosecute the robber? (the individual fileshares)
or the people making the door-opener (the one making the "original" copy)
but the people pointing out "you can buy door-openers over there"

Anyway, filesharing isn't robbery and opening a door isn't the same as hosting a website otherwise your morals suck since you think it's justifed killing everyone in the town (shutting down the internet) just in case someone might hold up a door for someone else.

So, you think people should be convicted for opening a door? or maybe just installing a door?

If there wasn't a door the bank robber couldn't get away! or in for that matter.

We can't convict people for setting up a web-site or hosting torrentfiles (linking to illegal AND legal content). The persons hosting TPB are not the one committing the crime.

It would be more like convicting someone who owns the paper where an advert for the door above (which was used in the bank-robbery). Insane.

Oh noes! Now the web sheriff is going to go after Slashdot too :(

Exactly, so you've just clarified one of the arguments _against_ IE. It causes other companies to develop specifically for IE something that could have been done just as good in a more "open" way.

Your case is _not_ an argument to keep IE integrated into Windows, just the opposite.