I was chatting with my 18 year old niece last week and in conversation I pointed out that downloading music using LimeWire was theft. Illegal. You could be sued. Infact, people have been. "Nah" she said, "how can it possibly be illegal". She went on to argue that it would be ridiculous if that was true, the technology was there. "How can it be illegal if its so easy to do". Quite.So, I was very interested to read Lawrence Lessig's post today "Prosecuting Online File Sharing Turns a Generation Criminal" on USNews.com. more>>
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Just a nitpick, it's not theft, its copyright infringement. For it to be theft, you have to take it, thus depriving the original owner of it. EG stealing a pair of shoes.
Making an exact copy of said pair of shoes is, is what downloading a song is.
Interesting and important site,
http://creativefreedom.org.nz/
Thanks Chris - was a pretty surreal conversation actually. She is bright, employed 18 year old and I find it incredible that she hadn't 'heard' or registered that prosecutions are starting to happen .. albiet overseas.
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