Unnamed_Player
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Here's my problem with the whole MP3/Source Code/Beta thing (and the legal ramifications thereof): We'll take MP3s as an example first here. Let's say some twelve year old kid is on his parents computer using Kazaa downloading MP3s. After sometime the RIAA sees that this kid has pulled down a significant amount of music. They strongarm the ISP into coughing up the name of the owner of the line and sue that person. Now it turns out that this kid and his family are pretty poor and upon hearing of this the public (that would be you and me) shakes our heads at the RIAA. "How could the RIAA be such assholes?", we say.
Let's examine what just happened. The representative of the legal copyright owners of some musical works files a lawsuit against a copyright infringer, and the public (again, that would be "us" collectively) is outraged over it. This will happen again and again as the RIAA pursues these tactics. Are they wrong to do so in the eyes of the law? No, they are exercising their rights as representatives of the copyright holders. Are they wrong to do so in the eyes of the public? Yes, very much so. Why? It's a David and Goliath complex, and most of these people are also on Kazaa pulling down files of their own. Will these lawsuits bear any real fruit for the music industry? I'm willing to bet, no. They'll only succeed in driving people off of Kazaa and onto the next big P2P wave and cost the industry more animosity and money.
Now we move on to the whole source code and beta deal. Now this situation is a bit different. We have a company that has something that a lot of people want. Through a series of events, which are arguably partially the fault of this company (I mean face it, they don't guard the gold in Fort Knox with a simple "No Tresspassing" sign), the company gets hacked and a lot of the stuff that everybody wants is taken.
Now we'll pause at this point for some quick clarification. Was the person or persons who broke into Valve's network doing something wrong? Only a moron could make any sort of argument against that. It was plainly a bad thing. Moving on...
This company learns that it has been hacked through various means and is dismayed to find out that whoever hacked them has put some of their property on the internet. After some time more of the stuff that everyone wants is put out there. Now this company has a decision to make. They can shrug it off, learn from the experience and try to get the official version of the stuff that everyone wants out there as quickly as possible or they can ram their heads into a brick wall repeatedly for no apparent reason (that's what we call a metaphor for you slower members of the herd). They chose to do the latter. The 20 foot wave is coming at them and threatening to crush them. Do they run and live to fight another day? No they pull out an umbrella and make some vain attempt to hold the water back.
Now what gets me is the reaction of the public to these events. You see the majority of the public is against the RIAA's fight (if you need proof of that you should go and look at how many people signed up for the amnesty program that they offered, fewer than a thousand), but they'll rally around a software developer that was beaten by some horrible hackers and is essentially fighting the same fight!
All I'm saying is this: pick a side. You can't be for copyright in some cases and against it in others. It's all or nothing.
