“That is the whole point here, it won’t make a difference and the unintended (though probably intended) consequences will have a detrimental effect well beyond the scope of piracy.”

I was thinking the exact same thing after reading one of those perpetually dumb comments the copyright supporting AC’s often make, like the idiotic Anti-Mike post further up from this one.

Has there ever been a law strongly lobbied for by the copyright industry that didn’t result in unintended consequences? More often than not, they end up burning themselves with the silly, usually too broad and poorly thought out, laws they manage to foist on everyone else. The flaming double-edged sword they flail around like mad men tends to cut them far more often and deeply than their chosen target, yet they never seem to learn from these mistakes. This amuses me to no end, because it means they’re doing more to harm themselves than we ever could.

I can only assume their pettiness, greed, and hate is blinding them, as is often the case with human nature. People always fall victim to tunnel vision when something they greatly desire lies within their sights. They’re so focused on goals they falsely believe will solve everything that they fail to observe the path which must be traveled to get there. This is a path that is always full of pitfalls, the most dangerous being the people they’ll inevitably step on to get there. Most of these are not even the people they perceive as enemies. Nor do they ever seem to notice the rampant and wide spread negative effects they produce on all the other people doing business out there, many of whom would likely not have chosen to support such detrimental laws if they’d had their say. Hell, even artists roll their eyes at the middle men claiming to be their protectors.

What does always surprise me is how much clout the entertainment industry has with the government, especially considering that in the grand scheme of things they are just a small and fairly insignificant industry compared to the rest. They may rake in a lot of cash (despite their claims to the contrary), but the actual contribution to the economic health of the country overall is pretty negligible by comparison, hence why it surprises me how they are able to dictate policy the way they do. Hopefully it will end once they’ve burned enough bridges due to their repeated interference. A much bigger industry with far more importance and clout will eventually stand up to them. All it will take is the entertainment industry profiting at the continual expense of the other business sectors. It’s kind of hard to justify excuses, like retaining jobs and profits for example, when you’re negatively impacting other businesses to the point that their net loss exceeds your net gains. At least I hope sanity will prevail when for every entertainment related job and dollar saved, two or more are lost elsewhere. Lets not kid ourselves though. It’s not really about jobs, it’s about money, control, and most importantly the power that these two things lead to. Democracy will end if left unchecked.

As the saying goes, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Another good one is that change is the only constant in this universe, change which is definitely on the horizon. Dissent over the undue influence corporate entities have over the government is growing stronger each day, and some day soon their free ride is going to come to a sudden, screeching halt. I hope you all have your seat belts on! You’ve been warned and have chosen not to listen, so now your going to be reminded why it is the people who have all the power, and not you or your corporate lackeys. Thanks in large part to the various lending institutions, the world is waking up and wising up. Your lack of humanity, compassion, and understanding, as well as your greed, pettiness, and foolishness, have sealed your fate.

/rant