Dear Sir/Madam,

We found out that from your IP address someone downloaded our stuff. You may now either admit guilt and pay $inconvenient_sum or spend the next 10ish years in court in a legal battle against a company with more funds than dear God himself over $ridiculous_sum. You'll probably win the suit, but for sure it will cost you more than $inconvenient_sum, and you can bet your ass that if you dared to try getting it back from us, we'll drag it out 'til the red guy from the basement complains about heating problems or you're finally totally broke.

It is of course entirely your choice.

Of course you can! It's even easy.

For-sale content of course cannot compete on price with free stuff. That's a given. But there are two areas where you can very easily compete with it: Convenience and quality.

Of course, if you're like the content industry and artificially lower both for the sake of "fighting piracy", you only shoot your own foot.

That's just the tip of the ice cube.

Imagine you're living in a country where movies are dubbed. Dubbed BADLY, I should probably add. I would PAY to get movies that run on public TV if I could only watch them without the atrocious dubbing!

And don't think that buying the DVD would solve that problem. Because of course you can ONLY get the dubbed version, while importing any media is of course outlawed. I tried to ask some politicians around here why it's ok for companies to manufacture abroad and import them for zilch while it's not ok for me to buy DVDs abroad. So far no sensible answer...

Personally, I'd consider a token ring much cooler.

We teach our kids in preschool that they should share, and then we punish them for it.

Talk 'bout mixed messages...

Maybe then the "sorry, I don't read spam" defense?

Show me one parent who gives a shit about copyright. If a letter comes with contents to the ring of "you might be sued for billions and billions", at least it will turn the older generation against the overreaching copyright too...

That's what a lawyer is for. So it's his time and his time costs your money, which is far easier to get back.

I tell her to carry condoms. At least there's a chance she'll heed that one.

Hormones are more powerful than anything you can do as a parent. Deal with it.

Huh? We're not talking about artists suing studios.

The very LAST thing I can use is a yes-man. Then again, my job is security. I need people who have the balls to stand up against self-important board members who can't identify and threaten them with termination (amongst more unpleasant things) if my security people don't overlook said board members' blunders.

I'm fine with http. I'm just stating my opinion. If that is grounds to lock me up, you can as well lock me up for then I'm in a prison already.

Would July 14th be ok?

The breeze around your neck that you feel shouldn't worry you...

That's what strong encryption is for.

The strange thing is that I trust the Russkies more by now than I trust the US...

If someone told me that 30 years ago...