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Every time you download a file, a child gets AIDS

Dude what are you talking about!? The MESSIAH himself, Obama peace be upon his name, is all-knowing and can at the bat of an eyelash bring about such a transformative change that the whole intellectual property system will be at peak efficiency!

Kidding aside, Obama does speak about reforming the whole intellectual property system (especially patents, which I do realize are different from copyrights and trade marks), albeit with sort of vague language. It's hard to quantify what exactly he means when he talks about reform, but hey at least he realizes something is wrong with the way we're going. Don't take my word for it, though. [barackobama.com]

I've looked at the other two candidates statements and again find nothing definitive. So I see it breaking down like this. Obama talks about rewriting intellectual property, writes some dream bill, only to have it obliterated in Congress due equally to his lack of commitment and Congress's general distaste for effective legislation. McCain and Clinton would probably be open to reform, but would jump at the chance to think of the children and gravitate towards anything that hurts filing sharing due to the whole child pornography thing.

In the end, there just aren't enough people that care. Now if we could find some way to relate copyright reform to gasoline prices, we might have a shot. People don't realize how important competent legislation is when it comes to an economy that becomes more dependent on the rapid share of information every day. The legal morass doesn't end with the MPAA and RIAA. We have patent trolls and perpetual litigators making things worse for everyone.

Relax. This is the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Their constituency pretty much consists of Hollywood.

The real issue that we face is that IP issues are simply boring to the average voter. Most people don't own patents and don't feel that copyright law affects them in any way. They are much more interested in what J. Wright blabbers on about than about issues that have an effect on the economy; such as IP laws.

(And yes, I think voters are morons. disclaimer - I've lived in Germany for a few years and have developed the same opinion of the average German voter. It seems that people are just stupid.)

Your best bet is an advertising campaign to raise awareness of the issues. Until that happens, we are in the wilderness dude.

We don't have the money to compete with them. But I don't think it matters. I'm guessing that most politicians who take money from organizations like the MPAA understand that trying to stop people from sharing files over the internet is like trying to stop them watching porn, except a lot harder.

It's been evident for a long time that it can't be stopped. Any attempt to lock stuff down that people don't like immediately produces workarounds. I'd argue the opposite: I think the public interest is served by the availability of information. Whether or not people have to engage in one to one market transactions to fund its creation is a secondary issue. No matter how many times the contrary is repeated, information is not property in the same way that a car is. Making the rules for it the same ignores this obvious fact.

My guess is that a lot of politicians welcome the money because they know that they'll never be able to do anything about it, so they'll stay cool with the public. Look at how many politicians take money from anti-abortion groups in full knowledge that they can rant and rave about abortion, but the law is unlikely to change.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

So the United States was serving a smaller group when women got the vote? When minorities got the vote? And when poll taxes were eliminated?

While your statement makes for a nice soundbite, it's vastly far from true. There are plenty of countries, including the US, that have extended political power to formerly disenfranchised groups.

The constitution is supposed to allow us to fix the government without it coming to that, but it doesn't seem to be working. So what changes do we need to make to the constitution to make it work? Not that the congress will allow us a convention to fix it.

We have a president who doesn't care what the constitution says at all. We have 2 out of 3 presidential candidates who voted to cede the decision to declare war from the congress to the president. How that isn't even an issue still boggles my mind. Even if you thought going into Iraq was a good idea you shouldn't have voted for that bill. But I digress. We're likely going to hand over the presidency to someone who has already proven they can't uphold the constitution.

"copyright infringement...is detrimental to the public health..."

I don't type "WTF" much, but WTF?

It looks like Tim Ball was right when he wrote, "For years I wondered what extremists provide to any debate. I've learned it is to define the limits for the majority. By taking extreme positions they cause the majority to say, hold on, now you are going too far.".

"How many companies who currently violate the GPL and LGPL can these new laws be used against?"

Exactly Zero.

Free Software doesn't pay politicians under the table, nor send Paris Hilton to your
weekend get-togethers. RMS is a poor substitute.