This is just a perfect example of what I see as the problem with our current copyright system. I’m all for creators being able to profit from their works – after all, I’m looking forward to being able to do the same thing – but this is downright ridiculous. There needs to be a limit on the life and breadth of a copyright. I look back at the age of traveling minstrels and folk tales and I wonder if we haven’t lost too much already. We don’t have folk songs anymore – we have a cartel, a coalition of big companies and unions clamping down on schools and camps and hospitals if someone so much as sings Happy Birthday. Modern cultural references are almost all copyrighted – is it any wonder there’s a backlash against big corporations? Culture brings us together, uniting us in common history and entertainment, but when people cannot gather around a campfire to sing their favorite songs or relate their favorite stories without worrying about lawyers from the Big Media companies, we have a problem.

I don’t agree with piracy, either, but this lawsuit is another symptom of the same thing. Yes, P2P software can be, and frequently is, used to pirate movies/music/software, but the method is not responsible for the use. Are the kitchen knife manufacturers responsible for crimes of passion? Are baseball bat makers to be sued when mobs use their products to bash in windows and attack police? The sad thing is that people will probably do just that, if it hasn’t been done already, despite the fact that anyone with a lick of sense can see that it’s stupid.
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