There were lawsuits against the technological ancestors of these devices (the Betamax, and if my memory supports me, the Rio). If they had succeeded, iPods and DVD players would not exist to buy. It is rather transparently impossible to detail where we would be now without the DMCA and related rulings. I would imagine that, this long and arduous path of accomplishment and revision left unfinished, any primitive conceptions of such devices as might otherwise now exist would merely leave them seeming useless and unnecessary. Nonetheless, it is inaccurate to label the “copyright industry” as any friend of technological advancement.

The difference being is that has been *repeatedly* shown that mistakes have been made and the wrong people have been sued (and threated) on several occasions.

You want to talk about a sense of entitlement? How about asking the taxpayers to pay the DOJ to act as civil copyright litigators for the major labels?

Oh, but I forgot – antitrust law is irresponsible meddling with the free market, while copyright-on-steroids and paracopyright are just a defense of property, right?

Oh, Patrick, how these words will haunt you. I suspect you’ll hear them sent right back at you the next time your benefactors, the major record labels, sue the makers of a new digital music product.

When the business model is suing consumers, plaguing customers with *false* accusations and trying to extort money out of people who haven’t done anything illegal, they have every right to fight back.