A Biased Judge

Wired notes that Obama sides with the RIAA and supports a $150,000 fine per COPIED music track. I put copied in capital letters right where the media normal puts words like purlioned or stolen because I like to be ACCURATE!
I just capitalized accurate because it's the blogging equivalent of yelling.

The record companies really want this sort of thing because they can't exist without a monopoly on distribution. In fact, they've only ever existed for a very short period of time because through the eras of vinyl, tape, and cd production was costly enough. Physical media was also property in a real sense; you can actually steal a cd in the full sense by removing it's presence from the original owner, so there was some limitation to its spread.

Now, however, it's back to the bard, so to speak. Musicians will make money as they have always done, by performance, perhaps by selling T-Shirts, but not the music. There was no RIAA in the 1600s, and as soon as the government either falls or figures out this small nugget of wisdom, it will disappear. Spreading a band's music around actually does them more good than harm; it's free advertising.

Meanwhile, doesn't this violate all sorts of injunctions, especially biblical ones, to be an unbaised judge? Give me $150,000; I can pay off my house and buy the one next door. How is that even remotely equivalent to a copied file?