Copyright has to be SEVERELY limited in time period so that it cannot stifle progress…. even 5 years in some cases is way too long for something to be copyrighted without unnecessarily stifling progress.

Add into this that DRM is meant to restrict people to ONLY the means that the copyright owners like (even if other means are just as legal) and you see another problem there.

Oh? Perhaps you can explain why my human ear can notice a difference between 320Kbps and lossless – regarding my previous comment, one lossless SONG (which isn’t exactly a necessity for one’s survival) isn’t worth more than 10 cents. This may come as a bit of a shock but people can live without “entertainment” – especially when the economy is in the toilet and most people are struggling just to make ends meet. Lad, I am an artist as well – however, as a sane individual, I do not regard music as a “product” or something to be exploited for monetary purposes. That’s the mentality of a corporate pimp – no artist should prostitute himself / herself or lose sight of the fact that art = art. Nothing more, nothing less – and certainly not something which should free one from earning an honest living doing real work which is actually worth $omething…

“And that is the future of copyrighted content: a closed system you will have to suffer in unless you know how to work through their proprietary computer hardware.”

Umm, you mean like every game console out there where the proper chipping/hack/root key has become public property after one sufficiently motivated and skilled enthusiast cracked the damn thing?

I stand by my conclusion. DRM doesn’t work. When you have a hardware solution it is enough that any one of a million enthusiasts figures out the key for all to be broken. Chipping anyone? Made easy by the fact that the actual lock and key are in the hands of the individual consumer.

When it concerns a software solution it’s even easier. The machine you play back the message on is also the one doing the decoding. If one single person anywhere manages to hook a suitable decoder to both end result and origin the algorhitm key is already busted.

The future you describe can not logically exist as long as the personal ownership of computers does.

I apologize, let me address those now.

The argument against digital copyright law is generally one using the constitutional rights of privacy or freedom of speech. The reason it gets so ugly is that these digital copyright laws were originally constructed to protect copyright, another constitutionally-defended right.

The unconstitutionality of law is left up to the courts once they are passed. In some cases, judges have cited specific reasons why they don’t believe their cases have fallen under the wording of those digital copyright laws. However, they have yet to be shown as unconstitutional as ruled by a court of law. People (and the courts) can find fault with the methods used, but that does not make the whole law unconstitutional unless the expressed purpose of the law somehow violates a higher right or freedom as given in the Constitution.

Revisions to these laws are made all the time, and precedents are set in court rulings to further define and explain the purpose and execution of the laws. Furthermore, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte ruled in 2002 that the DMCA in it’s scope and wording was not unconstitutional.

Similarly the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the CTEA (Bono Act) constitutional in 2003.

ACTA is not in itself unconstitutional, because it is merely an international agreement regarding how IP theft and counterfeiting are dealt with. I’ve just skimmed the current consolidated form looking for measures that could be taken as unconstitutional, and did not see any glaring cases (http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/october/tradoc_146699.pdf if you want to read it for yourself). ACTA is merely another attempt for trading nations to operate outside of the WIPO, UN, WTO, or EU circle of influence in the matters of IP trade.

If you want to discuss ACTA, please limit your criticism and evidence to those put forth after October of 2010 when that latest revision was released. The original proposal was rife with potential legal issues, which is why it was revised.

In Norwegian:
http://www.lovdata.no/all/tl-19610512-002-005.html#12

Translated:
§12: In non commercial cases, some copies of a published work can be made for private use.

The laws preliminary work explicitly allow copying of works from family and friends. You do not have to own an authorized copy yourself. The source you are copying from need to be an authorized copy, and in the case of music and movies you can not copy with the aid of outsiders other than family and friends.

It covers the normal practice of exchanging cultural works between friends in the private sphere, but excludes any commercial use or exchange between people who don’t know each other.