Sorry, My ISP (DirectTVDSL) has been down so I couldn't reply sooner.
I also don't know the law well enough to be certain who's going to prevail. I only have a pretty good sense for what's objectively right and wrong.
I spend 1-2 hours/day on FR, but I visit more papers from the 5-10 minutes that I look into Drudge's linked headlines. The more news I get off of FR, the more banner ad revenue papers lose from my absence. Perhaps I'm unique is some way, but I doubt it.
Point taken regarding the focus of your "intent" comment. The WP, LAT and the judge's ruling were probably highly influenced by politics. The same could be said for defending Kuwait from Iraq or Israel from Hamas, but it's still the right thing to do.
"No matter how many Free Republics or Napsters they put down, the cat is out of the bag. They need to get that through their thick skulls."
I think you overestimate the security of stray cats. There are ways of making it difficult to run warez sites, but there's no political motivation to implement them. It's similar to the law of diminishing returns while hunting terrorists. Simply because taking down that last 10% is cost prohibitive doesn’t mean that the terrorists are going to win. But if you're willing to surrender to lawlessness, maybe you'll be interested in this:
Anarchist Yellow Pages. But if you're willing to surrender to lawlessness, maybe you'll be interested in this: Not at all. I don't believe in breaking the law and neither do 90% of the people who are reading the articles posted on FR.
Do you read articles on FR without paying the source or visiting the site? Have you ever DL'd an MP3 or made a copy of a cassette or VCR tape? You don't have to answer because it's a rhetorical question and I already know the answer.
We should not condone breaking laws that we don't agree with, but whether or not anyone is breaking the law is a totally moot point. Metallica spent a few mil going after Napster, and all they got for it was a bunch of pissed off fans and 50 copycat sites for their trouble. If JR was ordered to shut down FR, all he would have to do is move to another country that doesn't have our copyright laws and start it up again.
Things are changing whether our antiquated 19th copyright system wants it to or not. I'm not even arguing if it's good, bad, right or wrong. It's simply a fact of life that (unlike terrorism as per your example) is infinite can't be stopped.
Unfortunately the dinosaur ideologue controllers may win this one and ruin something great while accompishing nothing. No justice will be served and no wrong will be righted.
All we'll have is a disabled vet with an ulcer and a looted bank account while a lot of rat pig leftists pat themselves on the back.