OK, explain this to me. I was stabbed by some psychopath about 4 years ago, and once the Police realised that it would not be an open and shut case, they completely lost interest. I see so many hardened criminals walking the streets here these days, but it seems like instead of locking some of those people up, its more desireable to try to increasingly criminalise ordinary folks for doing nothing more than sharing some mp3s.
"Not satisfied with hacking P2P networks, or destroying the computers of file sharers, House Hollywood sock puppet Howard Berman (Democrat, California) is now sponsoring legislation that would jail people who trade as little as one MP3 on the Internet."
No, you did not read that incorrectly. Jail. Along with paedophiles and rapists, child abusers and drug dealers. "Has the world gone mad?" you ask. Perhaps so.
The justifcation (at least in legal grounds) for this latest stunt apparently relies on the assumption "that any P2P activity with a copyrighted file involves more than ten copies and represents a retail value of $2,500, automatically making it a felony and bringing in the possibility of incarceration."
Perhaps soon, we shall be arresting people purely for having an internet connection and a PC, much in the same way that we currently arrest people for carrying knives. Not so much that they have done something, just that they might do. I am sure that all of this unhappy saga shall reach such silly heights eventually as jailing people for having Kazaa installed, or making mp3 codecs illegal. Such insanity is coming, I fear...