Police Raids Over "Piracy"

In the past couple months, there have been police raids, or subpena-endorsed raids, in several countries - the US, the UK, and now Australia and now Australia over what the entertainment industries calls "piracy" but what is really often file-sharing. (There is a difference: file-sharing is non-commercial sharing of content somebody owns. Piracy is copying and selling for profit.)

But what alarms me is just the idea of government law enforcement bringing out the heavy artillery to enforce intellectual property laws - or judges authorizing private trade groups to dispatch their own fake agents. Here in the States, the RIAA has dispatched its own quasi-law enforcement apparatus that it's setting out in subpena-backed raids.

Posted by thomasgoetz, February 6, 2004 04:13 PM | | TrackBack