There was this one time that a company violated safety rules multiple times resulting in substantial human pain and suffering. The courts decided to fine them punitive damages in the amount of 2.7 million dollars, which was still a trivial amount of money to the company.

This is the most often quoted case of our court systems abusing companies and coddling litigious citizens. But it is the epitome of what you are asking for here...

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm

>Encryption is ALWAYS breakable by brute force. ...with the exception One Time Pad encryption.

Do you need a conviction to get a restraining order? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_Violence_Offender_Gun_Ban

DVDs have DRM -- it's called CSS (it is cracked). Some of them even contain intentionally corrupted data to prevent copying. You're in for a surprise if you try to play a DVD in the wrong region or make a backup.

This means that the cable company can now track exactly what you are watching (you're asking for a specific channel's content, not a firehose of all channels at once). This could make life difficult for the content networks and affect the efficiencies of bundling. Comcast might be paying 30 cents per household for the Crocheting network now, but when they can show hard numbers that nobody is watching, those numbers might get slashed, which is probably why those entities are scared right now.

Everyone complains about the homogenization of our channels (What the hell is up with the programming on the History channel?!), but this could do more to hurt the more "indy" channels out there.

Depends on your definition of free. If you define free as "not in jail and free to walk around outside," the US ranks dead last in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate Although, that's only one way of defining free.

I second this. My table saw has a dust collection port, but I can't run the saw and the vacuum at the same time. Well... I can, but if I feed too much wood and the saw bogs down, everything shuts off.

As you say, those numbers are based on your site, linked by a sig that says, my game collection.

Of course mac people people aren't going to click on it... they know that it will have nothing to do with them -- mac users can't play games. They have macs!