HarmlessRabbit, we might have been arguing at cross-purposes here. The internet radio issue is a contentious and complex one. Web broadcasters were already paying ASCAP and BMI fees about equivalent to small college radio stations. The Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) proposal was to add additional royalties that would have bankrupted the small broadcasters.
I talk about bad laws that were proposed and you talk about how those laws were rejected but neither of us can be certain why they were rejected. Perhaps online activist like the
www.eff.org actually have a small voice that is being heard in Congress. I mean, Jesse frikkin Helms of all people came out against the CARP royalities because of the Christian Internet broadcasters.
Clearly the lawyers and money people are having this same difficult argument about intellectual property and technology that we here are having.
Society at large does need to have this argument too if the future IP model is to be viable, but how the hell do you get people into such a dry subject?
Well, that's where it gets interesting. Think of a guns or marijuana analogy. Some guy works at 7-11 and smokes the ganja. At 3am, he fills a paper cup with 7-11 candy and puts it in the microwave. The next day he goes to a rally for medical marijuana. Here we have an absolute twit lobbying for an honourable cause.
Another guy likes guns, he gets drunk and puts a propane cylinder in the middle of a field - pulls the trigger. Then he goes home and waves a pistol in his wife's face. The next day he goes to a second amendment rally and hands out flyers about the original intent of the founding fathers.
In both cases you have morons being politically active for selfish and stupid motives. Do their motives invalidate the arguments? In other words can the P2P networks ACTUALLY have legitimate uses regardless of whether some infringer uses this line as an mere excuse?