If you shoplift N times, you're going to go to jail eventually. If you break into someone's house, you're going to go to jail eventually. The evidence here is clearer than most crimes. We have IP addresses, times and other details that are much more incontrovertible than the evidence we use to put people away for life. So why not? I say that people who are too cheap to pay for content should have to face the consequences.

It's all about hating on the boys. Do they have any programs to get men interested in other topics? Nope. Do they do anything to help boys? Nope. But somehow they want to drive the boys out of the classroom.

Google and Netflix fund many of the NGOs that claim to be for freedom, privacy and -- surprise, surprise-- net neutrality. This is a battle between billionaires and the cable companies aren't the only billionaires in the game.

Google gives millions to groups that -- surprise, surprise-- fight for "net neutrality". So does Netflix. What does "net neutrality" mean? We shouldn't be surprised that these groups fight to make it easier for Google and Netflix to make money without having to share it with the cable companies. This is how business is done. The only thing naive about this article is that it pretends that only the cable companies are astroturfing. The EFF is one big astroturf factory for the Google.

This is a two-way street and a battle between billionaires. They're handing out money left and right to lobbyists like the EFF. Why? They want net neutrality so they can make more money from ads and subscriptions. Let's try to cover this fairly, please.

I was asked to pay when my corporation subscribed. Once you're bigger than a certain size, you're stuck paying. Only fools think Google is some fountain of free.

Actually, Google could do much, much more. They could actually punish the people who upload illegal copies. They could force people to log in with their Google account and they could require them to give their legit name. Then they could enforce some three strikes rule that booted someone from Google for uploading bad video. But they don't do any of this. They make uploading so easy yet they make filing a DMCA request take hours of work. Is it any surprise what happens more often? They could also share the names of the felons with the victims. They do this for other crimes. Why not copyright?

Actually Google didn't create the Nexus. It pretty much copied much of the iPhone's look and feel. Then it hired some company in Taiwan to make it.

Here here. The RIAA and the big content companies don't stop anyone from creating some amazing things and giving them away. But this rarely happens, if ever. Somehow everyone wants to see the fancy movies created by professionals who believe in copyright.

Yes, and the copyright model is also optional. If you want to create something and give it away, copyright doesn't get in your way. It says, "More power to you." The open source dreamers and the copyright fanatics can and do coexist. But if the copyright deniers get their way, only the rich will have the spare time to indulge in art.

Of course it will stop. That's just a law of economics. If the artists can't make money to eat and pay for their health care, they'll get day jobs and have less time to create. This is already going on in the newspaper world where many papers have gone out of business. Now the web is dominated by aggregators like Slashdot that do little original reporting and much quoting. The same is true of movies. We've seen the death of small art films. The films winning at Sundance used to get great contracts and good distribution throughout the world. Now they're lucky to get a 1/10th of what they used to get. You're right that there will still be some random cat videos from folks and an occasional vanity project by someone with money to burn, but there is already a big change in the market for creativity and it will only get worse.

Please. Copyright only gives the producers control over the IP they create. If you want to create art and give it away that's your choice. But this is no different from the law saying that a carpenter can decide what happens to his or her work. If the carpenter wants to build something, the carpenter retains complete control and ownership until the carpenter decides to sell it or give it away. The IP laws just establish the same rules for artists. Again... if you don't like the so called stranglehold, why don't you just go make your own great films and put them in the public domain. Show Hollywood how it should be done. Prove that it can be done.

Sorry. Wrong answer. I agree with the first guy. When you move out of your mama's basement and get a real job, you'll realize what it's like to create something. You'll want to get paid for your work and you'll hate the first punk kid who comes long full of rationalizations.

And the public says, "I would rather have a cool game built by people who are paid and given health coverage than pirate something." So EA wins. People are willing to pay for content and if DRM stops the freeloaders, DRM helps the legit customers who pay full freight.

1) So what if it's older. They get huge bushels of cash from Google and the Brin foundation today. And so they dance like any hired gun. http://boingboing.net/2011/12/10/give-to-eff-today-and-your-do.html 2) Maybe the reason you don't know this is because your invite got lost: https://www.eff.org/event/eff-mixer-google 3) DRM is secure communication. The pirates are the eavesdroppers. Get a frickin clue. And Torvalds's logic is solid. Locking up my love letter so only my spouse can read it is the exact technological challenge as locking up my artistic creation so only the non-pirates can view it. http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2003042401126OSKNLL http://news.cnet.com/Torvalds-says-DRM-isnt-necessarily-bad/2100-7344_3-6034964.html Quit being a sap for leeching business models. The EFF and Google just want to manipulate you into hating DRM so the money will keep flowing to them. DRM doesn't break the Internet, it breaks Google's business model. They're not the same thing.