Ed Felten notes a rhetorical trope, whereby defenders of strong copyright link filesharing to pornography consumption and production. This would be a piece of the classic mechanism of using a medium to project one's fears, and ties into the classic American obsession with sex as ultimate evil.
With his customary humor, Ed adds:
For example, Hollywood argues that filesharing will lead to a shortage of movies, because nobody will make movies they can't sell. But when the topic switches to pornographic movies, suddenly they start arguing that filesharing increases the creation and availability of content.
Mmmm, apparently all of those free, short (non-porn) movies floating around the web are not really there according to H-wood.
Posted by: Kate Riley | March 28, 2005 at 12:33