[doctorow]

While various industry protagonists are lamenting the piracy effect of digital goods, I wonder, how is that any different from the good old analog days when everyone was happily making analog copies left and right? Remember how you could buy blank cassette tapes in bundles of 20, 50, or 100 for very little money? What other purchase did these serve for the normal consumer than to rip lots audio? Heck, I was sharing music with my teachers, and nobody thought anything wrong about it or considered it to be piracy. Nor was there anyone complaining.

Perhaps it's time to reconsider existing copyright laws that were developed in the old age of the physical hard-copy world, and question the purpose and alleged benefit of criminalizing normal people like you and me.