Does anyone agree with me if I say that software-pirates will rot in hell, but people who download songs illegally won't?

Why is that so different? In both cases you make people lose money...

I think that the music industry is designed to screw the artists who make the music, but with software, everyone gets their fair share.

Good point, but artists still gets their share.

That's not so true these days. A lot of artists get an advance payment when they are signed up that gets spent on recording, touring, etc. and their personal income is a small salary. Also, royalties for songwriters is something that is disappearing too, as record companies are more and more buying the rights to songs from professional songwriters before they decide who is going to record them.

A friend of mine writes songs and sells them to record companies, and he only ever finds out who is going to record them much later than when he writes them. The majority of them are never recorded, but the record company will still buy them so that they can give record producers a choice of songs to take into the studio.

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Once you've made something idiot proof, they go and invent a better idiot!

This is also a problem in the software industry, in an even worse way. see: software patents.

I declare that I own "0010 010101 010100010". Don't copy/paste/steal!

Ok, I would like to raise the question... What does it mean to 'own' software or digital files? If you think about it, it's rather an abstract concept. I understand 'owning' a creation, but when there is _no_ effort going into duplicating it, is this construct we have created of 'owning' really fair?

With furniture, for example, to duplicate a table cost money (raw materials). The "IP" involved cannot be copied (or stolen?) without a physical cost.

In addition, the laws we have created protecting "IP" (copyright and patent laws) tend to expire after a length of time, to make things "more fair" to competitors, as I understand it. Why not make things fair to begin with?

I understand all these constructs have been created to protect the "profit motive" in a capitalist society... However, the growth of the open-source movement provides a challenging alternative to the 'lone mad scientist' who comes up with new ideas that he can profit from (i.e. Thomas Edison, or many inventors from history). I tend to think the new clustering of minds that happens with open source is much more productive than the 'lone mad scientist' approach.

In fact, open-source innovation is moving beyond software. Check out these sites:

http://www.thinkcycle.com/
http://www.shouldexist.org/

So the question: should society agree to laws that protect the ideas of one person from everyone else, at least for a while so they can profit from it, then later 'make it fair' by expiring patents, etc.? Maybe it's time for a copyright/patent law upgrade...

peace, danboarder