Keep your hands off My candy

If you have brothers or sisters you have heard your Mother say these words " Ok everybody share and share alike". I will admit if I had the candy in my hand when I heard those words, I always looked for the good candy before I shared. These days people are getting arrested for sharing, Oh yes the dilemina of downloading. Everybody wants their music and film without paying for them. We all know it is wrong but we are caught between greed and a guilt complex. The theory holds that all music downloaded is legal as long as it is for personal use, that's the "Fair Use Doctrine". If you are copying notes at the library or burning a CD or DVD for friends that's ok. The courts have ruled that the video tape recorded does not violate copyright laws. What is the difference between copying a TV show vs online file sharing which allows people to download music or video files from another computer? When the VCR was introduced, hollywood and music company's tried to scare people into not using it. Now hollywood and music company's have joined forces once again in the rerun of that same argument, trying to protect themselves from peer to peer network software. They want anyone who provides this software or uses it to download files from the internet to be held liable for file sharing. It would be naive to think either practice will stop. The VCR not to mention advances such as TiVo are accepted and peer to peer software is wide spread. Today it would be hard to imagine what the world would be like if Sony had lost their court case in 1984. All the devices capable of copying including the computer, home printer, VCR, TiVo, and Mp3 players would never have navigated the legal minefield. Even if the entertainment company's win their court battle it will not be easy to shut down centralized computer links used to trade songs and film. I do not think you can go into people's homes and pull software out of their computers. I see the software as autonomous communications. Regardless of the outcome of the case before the lands highest court, there will be consequences for both sides. It will still be illegal to download copyrighted material without permission, though millions of computer users will continue to do it everyday.