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Hypocrisy

Why aren't gun manufacturers and sellers shut down by the government? And car manufacturers, for that matter.

If the courts can shut down Napster and impose restrictions on peer-to-peer file sharing via coersion of ISPs, then why aren't these two entities eradicated from society? Peer-to-peer file sharing is not illegal. Making tools that enable P2P is also not illegal. Likewise, making a car or a gun is also not illegal.

What is illegal is shooting someone with that gun, running them over with your car, or copying copyrighted materials with the P2P network.

The strategy that the RIAA has persued in the courts has been to go after these totally legal operations in an attempt to stymie their use in breaking the law. Without even going into the greater issue of these laws and how they came about so that an industry could manipulate artists and consumers into dollars, let's assume that people are actually illegally downloading material using these networks.

That doesn't mean we should shut down the networks any more than we should ban guns and cars. The hypocrisy oozes like fat from bacon.

PGP Signed Entry