The only change is that the average citizen thinks that he is above the law.
>>The only change is that the average citizen thinks that he is above the law<<
Actually, we live in a country where we have a tradition that all laws apply to all citizens equally. That is, there is no "some are more equal than others". What this means is that as we see our "leaders" break laws with impunity, we apply the same standards to ourselves. Some do it consciously, others less so.
Slouching Towards Gomorrah comes to mind.
"The only change is that the average citizen thinks that he is above the law."
When the "law" is unjust, the average citizen is damn well above the law. The problem is, we have yet to determine what the "law" is. Don't download any music without paying somebody for.....what? The priviledge of listening to music that I have paid for half a dozen times in the past? What's the law, here? What law am I breaking? How many times must I pay for a song before it is mine to listen to as many times as I please? What is the dollar amount on that? What's the time-limit on my purchase? What am I really purchasing? The medium or the music? What law says I have to repeatedly pay for the priviledge of listening to a 3 minute song whenever I want? What are the intervals in which I should re-pay? When the media breaks, wears out or gets stolen, what does that have to do with my purchase of the rights to listen to a particular song?
Uh, oh. We just hit on something didn't we? No more re-buys. Let's think about that, shall we. How many CDs did I buy to replace cassettes I already had? Hundreds? How many times have I rebought cassettes, records and CDs due to theft, breakage, or wear? Thousands?
So, just me and that's thousands of re-buys on music that counted as record sales. No more. CD wears out and you just burn a new one yourself, even if you did pay for your downloads. That's another thing RIAA is trying to make up for. Not screwing people out of their money by making them pay for the same "intellectual property" numerous times has cost them big.
So excuse me if I don't feel too guilty since nobody ever answers those earlier questions. I think I can fathom a guess as to the answers and they are NOT fair to the consumer.