Les_the_Sarge_9_1 -> RE: Downloading music gets easier? (4/9/2004 4:37:39 PM)
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We will continue to have trouble with the internet and electronic media until we get past a few specific realities. First reality, I don't think there will come a day any time soon whereupon anyone or any group can actually "regulate" it. Second, electronic data is so incredible movable, that it is just plain stupid to attempt to apply physical world rules to it as if it was on an equal footing. In the world of the physical, a adult content magazine is physical, and not nearly the equal as electronic adult internet content. So laws concerning adult content in a convcenience store, have little value to application to an internet site. Music, video, games, applications, anything that can be called electronic data, it simply isn't the same as anything that is physical. So applying the same laws is frankly a dumb wastage of effort. If a person steals a cd from a store, or steals a book or a movie or any of many physical items, it is different. You might not think so, but it is. Lifting electronic data is both infinitely easier, and infinitely more damaging. If the person steals a single physical item, it means the lost sale of a single item. But the theft of electronic data, means a completely unknown quantity of lost sales. The crime is NOT identical. Of course it all comes down to punishment applied. I have heard of cases where murder and or manslaughter is treated with less severity to crimes that most would consider trivial in the extreme. Our judicial system is to mired in precedent, and not willing to actually dispense justice as the word is known to the dictionary.
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