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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 4872921" data-attributes="member: 957">Exactly.  The author jumps from the legal (if annoying) actions between two private parties to a presumption of universal government mandate on all media.   Have we leapt to the conclusion that paper is fully gone and every digital media item everywhere is tapped into the government?If one party in a private exchange did not understand the terms of the deal they choose to enter, then that is an example of not using your power of choice wisely.Yes, the circumstance described in the article is very very scary.So is being chased by Michael Meyers.This situation is not completely impossible.  But I think it is very unlikely.  Or at least if circumstances became such that it was reasonably possible, this would be far far down our list of things to worry about at that point.  Seriously, if you assume that the government has that much control over communication, is your first concern that they might delete your copy of Atlas Shrugged?  Regardless of you political stance, it is very easy to think of vastly more scary implications of things that would happen along the way to making this particular result.  So either it never happens or the game is already over before we get there.  Either way, it isn't a meaningful battle.But in any society that more or less resembles today's society, writing off alternative media as bittorrent is far from the mark.   More and more alternative options are out there and one copy of anything on one flash drive can be six-degreed to the whole world in an afternoon.  Don't get me wrong.  The prospect of what is presented is very concerning.  And even at the private level, my recent consideration of picking up a kindle just went into reconsider mode.  (though it may survive the further review)And I know there are many people who would be thrilled to censor all kinds of things and would not hesitate to do so.But I think the article ignores to much of the big picture to provide an realistic assessment of the threats and alternatives.</blockquote>

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