You say that...

>>...claims for damages by copyright holders have not, generally, been found or supported (maybe I should have added “by the courts”) and thus have not imposed penalty on the private copier who copies from their own purchased original for their own personal use.”<<

and also that...

>>...[t]he system does work, it is just you disagree with the system<<

I fail to see any merit in a position that can i) accept that an action is illegal, ii) claim that it doesn't matter that it is illegal, the courts aren't going to do anything about it and iii) that this is an acceptable state of affairs.

And you tell me to grow up!

(Copy-of-previous-post-with-correction--Previous-post-to-be-deleted)

BOAZ_David wrote : "A lady I know has even financed a second house just by doing door to door health food sales. So, for the get up and go type, there is plenty of opportunity."

Just how many more door-to-door salespersons does either Malaysia or Australia need? Of course there will always be a few individuals who will do well in an occupation which does not create any tangible wealth, but the rest of us would prefer to have occupations which allow us to make a useful contribution to society.

There is plenty of useful work out there which needs to be urgently done, in the area of repair to our damaged environment for a start, but somehow the 'free market' prefers to waste peoples' energies on the delivery of junk mail, telemarketing, door-to-door sales and other totally demeaning and useless occupations.

t.u.s., the $13-something on offer to Elisabeth Wynhausen on page 177 was NOT for a 38 hour week. It was for a PART-TIME non-casual role. Her co-worker who wanted a full time job, instead had to work five half day shifts.

"That made him typical of the growing number of people faced with the prospect of growing poverty because they couldn't get full time work - as if it were a commodity too valuable to throw away on the young. His bills were mounting up because he had to make regular payments, like the $70 dollar a month he owed Optus for his mobile phone, and he was $800 in debt he said."

Contrary to your pronouncement on "Dirt Cheap". I think that it is very inspiring and well written.

Elisabeth Wynhausen had put herself out for over 12 months in order to find out what life is reallly like at the "wrong end of the job market". I would like to see those in this forum who advocate cutting welfare and wages for the already miserably paid, claiming that they are doing so with their best interests at heart, do as Elisabeth Wynhausen did.

Col,

We may have no choice but to abide by these rotten laws, but there is no way that that we can be made to respect these laws, nor can we be made to respect those who have enacted them or who will be employed to enforce them, especially given the double standards, that, as Pericles has shown, you and the recording industry apparently condone.

A great site about copyright can be found here:

http://www.copyrightmyths.org

The blog post, entitled "Jimi Hendrix and other Musical and Financial Meanderings", at http://jeffrichards.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_jeffrichards_archive.html entitled would also be of interest readers of this forum thread.

Col, the new laws are somewhat stricter than those anywhere else in the world (even the US) - do you agree with this decision?

I.e. for the first time ever we are going to experience 'strict criminal liability' provisions. This means that neither intent nor knowledge of a Copyright breach is relevant when considering judgement.

Now 'strict criminal liability' is all well and good for tangible breaches of the law - say when you break into private property or you steal something 'obviously' belonging to someone else.

However Copyright is neither tangible nor black and white - and with this new legislation the borders are now even more blurred than before (if that is possible). Even lawyers are having trouble determining what is and what is not legal - so how can the common man?

I hate to be a Cassandra all the time, but the new laws seem to have gone WAY overboard in tipping the balance in favour of Copyright holders.