Please god no. That is all.

Disproportionate statutory damages is the only reasonable defense; as others have pointed out, the RIAA gains ridiculous leverage because merely leaving a song upon eMule subjects you to thousands of dollars in phantom damages. Even if you ARE innocent, the risk/reward ratio allows the record mafia to shake you down simply because no one can risk the damages from losing.

Of course, the other obvious approach is to have Congress rewrite the statute to properly differentiate between a bootlegging operation with thousands of dollars in profit with counterfeit DVDs and some poor schmuck trying to get a few Mp3s.

I'd counter with the right to protect your business. Non-competes arise out of a number of valid reasons. They can be used to protect trade secrets. They can be used to protect customer relationships. Both of these cost a lot of money to create and maintain and there has to be some method of keeping your direct competitors from poaching them by bribing your employees.

That said, the law usually finds a balance and will usually strike down a non-compete that is too broad -- or in other words, defines "competitor" so expansively that it's impossible to find another job the utilizes your actual skills (rather than your former employer's trade secrets or customer relationships.)

Um, you forgot a couple of other possibilities:

5. Cut obscene executive pay, bonuses, and perks.

6. Fire bloated middle management (and bloated middle managers)

And most shareholders hardly count as "consumers", although I suppose you're right, there might be less consumption of luxury cars and second homes. Somehow I think that's a reduction in consumption we can live with.

Hmmm, I'm not a corporation and I and the many other volunteers I worked with did (IMHO) a lot to get him into power. I think you're confusing Obama with our last president....

Microsoft gets the benefit of a legal system (backed with armed force) that protects its so-called intellectual property, among other things. Seriously, in an anarchy don't you think lots and LOTS of people would beat up Bill Gates, break his glasses, and steal his (billions in) lunch money?

No kidding. IBM is still keeping PICK operating systems (U2?) on life support.

So it's not my firefox/windows/router/isp dns cache being poisoned and directing me to a government controlled evil Google clone?

The other possibility was the evil overlords were stopping me from to figuring out how to mount my pirated copy of F.E.A.R. (Yeah, someone lost disk 5/5 of the legitimate copy.)