Sometimes, the copyright commandos go so far over the top that they amaze even me. Consider NBC/Universal General Counsel Rick Cotton (via Ars Technica):

"Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned," Cotton said. "If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year."

Yeah, those violent crimes are minor league stuff - we should be focusing on the entirely overblown issue of piracy instead. Follow the link to Ars Technica for the details on how overblown it is - they claim "hundreds of billions" in losses, which is just so much crap.

The main problem is that the music and studio industries have worked very, very hard to ensure that their products are not available in forms that are easy to consume. DVDs that have unskippable ads, CDs with malware, digital content with DRM - it's all set up to hinder use, not encourage it. Remember that these are the same bozos who wanted to ban VCRs - they simply can't wrap their head around the idea that people will pay for convenience. There are always going to be Torrent sites, but given a choice between a convenient, legal (and not onerous) system and the illegal bypass system, most people will stay legal - just like most people stop for red lights.

People like Cotton do enormous damage to the industry they claim to protect.

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