I have expressed my concerns about the state of copyright law to my representatives multiple times over the years; there has been essentially no effect. The MP

I have expressed my concerns about the state of copyright law to my representatives multiple times over the years; there has been essentially no effect. The MPAA, RIAA, and other copyright lobbying groups have basically bought our politicians when it comes to this, and people who speak out against this state of affairs are basically ignored. Why would the government want to end the nice, cozy relationship it has with the movie industry, when our entertainment makes such an excellent platform for propaganda? The battle over copyright is going to be ugly -- it was ugly in 16th century England, and it is going to be ugly in 21st century America. We are going to see increasing attempts to prevent people from violating copyrights (which will conveniently undermine other, less convenient rights), an increase in the attempts to indoctrinate children into the "copyrights are a natural property right" way of thinking, and further exploitation of creative works (how dare you compose a song that borrows a tune from another song? If you do not work for us, we won't let you!). We are going to see copyright used as the excuse to establish firewalls, to arrest programmers who dare to write code that is useful to individuals at the expense of corporate profits, to sneak restrictions into computers and unwind the entire PC revolution, etc. The culture of illegal cable will expand to include illegal computers of all kinds -- computers that won't enforce the will of corporate overlords, computers that will allow users to write their own programs without asking permission, computers that won't care about expiration dates on data.