Or rather, the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” truism, but in the context of intellectual property. More nonsense on the IP rights front with California Senator, Kevin Murray, proposing legislation that would make p2p companies responsible for the illegal actions of their users (ie, copyright violations). Uh, like gun manufacturers are responsible for murders committed with their products? Or, ISP’s are responsible for what’s said in the email/blogs of their customers? Etc, etc.

While I want nothing more than to squash piracy via organized crime and mob outfits (which coincidentally, the gov wants more powers over too), it is amazing to see the reach/influence that the entertainment industries (mainly film and music) wield over politics - and their ability to choke user rights. A summary of a Cory Doctorow lecture on digital rights goes into some of the ass-backwards-ness of it all. But ya, I guess they have to be scared, because times are changing and old models are crumbling.

Two articles from the January issue of Wired magazine give a comprehensive overview of the underground activity of online piracy, and some insight into BitTorrent, which I commented on earlier…

All of this is very fuzzy and there’s a lot of nuance to what’s right/wrong or who is good/bad. Pirates of the Digital Millennium is a great book that delves into the history of IP rights, the current state of affairs and nicely explores all the gray areas. I highly recommend it to those interested in better understanding IP issues from a more holistic perspective. Also, I just picked up Free Culture, the latest book from Lessig. Should be interesting…