Of course we can! Double standards are one of the lubricants that keep the machinery of society spinning!
I think double standards are essential to our well-being, since they allow for simple answers to complicated questions - questions asked by children not yet emotionally prepared for the "true" responses that you infer are needed.
Well, technically, if you want to be exactly correct, the government's responsibility is to protect a motorist from the errors of _other_ drivers. Protecting a citizen from _his own_ folly is impossible, especially in a representative democracy such as the U.S.
Do I sense a concern that your children might drift over to the other side? ;-J.
That's very unlikely.
They didn't, cart before horse, and they always do: read your Terms of Service.
His friends told him on the school bus -- which is where children learn about _REAL_ life :-).
Innocence and thievery are not mutually exclusive -- read Oliver Twist -- and the punishment for stealing a carton of records (how would a child get access to a whole carton? Why would he want one?) would most likely be more fitting to the crime than the RIAA's extortionate demands for thousands of dollars as compensation for _copying_ a copyrighted work.
I'll cut to the chase -- the P2P battle is just the trampled grass surrounding the ring in which the industrial elephants from the old and the new entertainment worlds are doing battle.
The old world entertainment companies, panicking at the thought of losing their choke hold on the production and distribution of enter- ainment media, are waging a FUD campaign to dissuade you and me from using our computers to bypass their monopoly on the management of popular culture.
The copying issue is a red herring: copying has always been, and always will be, a marginal cost to the media giants. What they're _REALLY_ afraid of is that the kid who copies a song by some overpriced, over-hyped, and overdressed "star" will eventually pick up a musical instrument, turn on a microphone, and undercut the carefully timed, tightly coordinated, and incredibly profitable explosion of the Next Big Thing(TM).
After all, the kid who trades music from other artists might -- dare we think it? -- decide to create and distribute his own works in the same way, and _THAT_ is what the RIAA is afraid of: what good is a record industry if no one uses records? What good is an industry association if there's no industry to associate with?
The new world elephants, i.e., the Linux/Apple/Intel/MS alliances that are used to continual change and frequent renegotiations and constantly reinventing themselves, mindful of the impossibility of competing with the Asian Govopoly in the production of dedicated- function devices such as CD or DVD players, are encouraging end users to employ general-purpose computers as distribution nodes that will bypass the studio coke heads and their vicious and ultimately doomed attempts to arrogate a 70% tax on all forms of entertainment purchased in the industrial world.
Pass the peanuts: it's about to get interesting out here on the grass.
William Copyright (C) 2005 William Warren. All Rights Reserved. Pat can publish this, but anyone else has to pay me royalties. I like royalties. They're like an annuity that never stops. I think everyone should copyright everything all the time and never give away anything for free. (Filter noise from my address for direct replies)