Infringement Nation: we are all mega-crooks

[app103]

John Tehranian's paper, "Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap," from a forthcoming symposium issue of the Utah Law Review on "Fixing Copyright," is a great, tight little essay on the way that the growing gap between what technology allows us to do and what copyright tells us not to do is turning us all into mega-crooks. Just by doing the normal, everyday stuff -- chatting with friends, sharing the moments of our lives -- we commit billions of dollars' worth of infringements...

How Much Do You Infringe On A Daily Basis?

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/17/infringement-nation.html

[Ralf Maximus]

I have such mixed feelings about all this.  Sure, copyright is necessary -- an artist must be protected.  But to what extent?  And for how long?

It's clearly reached ridiculous proportions.  But even acknowledging where the fault lays (evil entertainment monopolies, mostly) it's diffcult to see a way out.

Maybe we are doomed to be criminals, all of us.