I've been trying to accumulate a list of practices or behaviors where there has never been any (or much) barrier to copying, and where for someone to complain w

I've been trying to accumulate a list of practices or behaviors where there has never been any (or much) barrier to copying, and where for someone to complain would sound a little bizarre. Never mind hair styles and couture.... your question carries weight beyond that, I think. Here's my suggested answer: Philosophers and theologians have debated for thousands of years about whether life has meaning and purpose. Arguably, modern genetics and evolutionary biology have given us a definitive answer to that question: if life can be said to have any purpose at all, that purpose is making copies. Making copies on behalf of our genome is what we're here for. This is one of the few statements you can make about all forms of life, from viruses to blue whales. So when someone introduces an artificial means of making information uncopyable, they're going up against the oldest, strongest instinct that any creature possesses: the instinct that tells us to back up our information by spreading it far and wide. And yes, that includes other peoples' information, considering how much of our genome has been cribbed from other species. It's an imperfect argument and probably a bit too abstract for Congressmen to either grasp or successfully shoot down, but I like it.