Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. So what? Let them be destroyed. I'd rather sacrifice some jobs than watch gigantic media conglomerates take over the computing industry and destroy our computing freedom with their DRM. There is no other way for them to enforce copyright in the 21st century so that's exactly what they'll try to do. They won't rest until every computer available to the public is lock…
You'd rather sacrifice someone else's jobs for your ideals? What a fair, well considered trade. The freedom you see to seem to be looking for here is freedom from consequences, not actual freedom. As always with the products other people are making, you have the choice to not buy them. That is actual freedom. Be careful making other's choices for them, it is closer to the governmental overreach you are against.
That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. You can have as much as you want. Why would anyone buy copies when making new ones is as easy as copy and paste? Only the original copy must be paid for.
So there is in fact a third choice to buying or not buying data: obtain a copy from someone who already has it. Copyright law is all about getting rid of that choice. It's all about making sure that creators monopolize the means to make copies. Copyright is about the right to make copies.
Making copies of data is a fundamental computer operation. We can find this ability in functions such as memcpy, in programs such as cp and HTTP servers. Making copies is trivial. Anyone who owns a computer can do it. Without compromising our freedom to run these programs, copyright law is unenforceable.
So it's not just ideals. In order to actually enforce copyright law, computers must be made to answer to the copyright industry instead of users. As a computer user and programmer, that's not the future I want.
