I have 1200+ proofs of purchase standing in a CD cabinet in my living room. When I try to rip those CD's to 320 MP3 (yeah, yeah, go ahead... hit me with the AAC, OGG or FLAC arguments), quite a few of them fail for having developed read problems while standing in my cabinet.

Since I will not invest this money again, I will simply download a FLAC version and convert it, or find a decent 320 rip which I will then tag, supply with cover art and import to iTunes. I only have 400+ albums to go out of my collection, because 700+ are already of said quality by now. The rest is sub-320 Mp3. Don't ask... storage *was* more expensive at some point in time, you know. If they come knocking, I would be delighted to go through my record collection with any interested party. ;)

My point here is that I might be seen as a pirate too because of my downloading behaviour. However, I'm just creating a much needed backup copy for information I have purchased on a physical media. I find the moniker "pirate" somewhat offensive for someone who has put as much effort and money into a music collection as I have.

No. As some other poster already commented, apologizing to his family, or for that matter to all families of people that got persecuted for similar reasons, would go a long way towards the right direction, but a pardon is just silly. The man got convicted, and is dead as a result of what happened A posthumous pardon would just feel like a big wallop of mustard after the meal.

So at the end of the day I find the statement of the House of Lords quite correct, but would appreciate it if someone could apologize for this. Having said that, this is an endless cycle. In Holland, the Catholic Church needs to apologize for the Inquisition, but the protestants need to apologize for what they did to Catholics after the inquisition, the VOC people should apologize to the Indonesians, West-Africans, South-Africans (the black ones), the KNIL people should apologize to some Indonesians, the Japanese should apologize to some KNIL people I know, the English should apologize to us for taking Manhattan away, the Dutch should apologize to the English for giving them Manhattan, etc etc etc.

The apology business is a never ending circle-jerk because if I had a dime for every group that has been maltreated somewhere on the planet during mankind's history, I'd never have to work again.

You might say it's not the same, but I guarantee you there's plenty of people on the street that don't understand the difference in nuance. A restriction is a restriction is a restriction, and quite a few humans have issues accepting those restrictions from the powers that be, whatever their shape may take.

So a reaction against totalitarian States will be similar to a reaction against restrictive Corporate Policies. :)

To copy behaviour, tools and ideas is an Evolutionary force that is embedded in our brains. Quite frankly, it's a force that has done us as a species quite a bit of good over evolutionary history. We are, after all, at the top of the food chain.

There is no possible solution to the "piracy problem" apart from lobotomizing most of mankind. I am very surprised that people don't seem to realize this. If your business model doesn't fit reality, I suggest you try to adapt the business model, not reality.

Why? TOAC had a point. A very valid point. What's funny about this is that on the same page I saw this article, I saw an article entitled "Should science rethink the definition of "Life"?". It even said "With the increase of extremophile discovery in recent years perhaps it's time to reassess what the definition of "life" should be."

And here you are arguing the poster just wants people to believe his or her viewpoint without ever countering the actual counterargument you complain about.

Ad hominem character assassination just isn't cool.

I have to second what the AC said below. That is the most idiotic thing I've heard in a long time.

You're really asking us what the difference is between choosing not to say something or having your government making sure you don't say a given thing? If you are a US citizen AND you would say such a thing, I suggest you print out your Constitution and Declaration of Independence and henceforth use it to wipe your ass with.

Wow.

Actually, I can talk to more than three different people at the same time. Physically, that is.

If they give me an amp, it becomes quite scalable. ;)

Money is money. If you're buying what I'm selling, I'm ok with you using a feather and ink or sms if need be. Specifically in these times.

What you just said is amazing. Wow.

Right.

I work for an American company and my work territory consists of Scandinavia, the Benelux and France while my boss is in the UK.

My wife is from Israel, and my son and my ex also live in Israel. Apart from that I have friends all over the world, including Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Israel, Russia, the US and Austria.

Could you explain to me how knowing what methods of communication are used in those countries is not relevant?

And, more to the point, what rock have you been living under in the last 15 years?

You realize that was just a long winded way of saying never to attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.