the whole article seems to suffer from the mistaken belief that law is fixed in time, and every provision of every new intellectual property law has already been approved by every relevant court. 

This simply isn’t how law works.  As long as there’s a disagreement, and cases going to court, there’s still a chance that any particular provision will be overthrown, and an even larger chance that a more sensible, more mainstream court in the future will overthrow even more of them.

Until then, the law is up for grabs.  Currently the “law” is more like asking who is winning a war than like asking where the internationally recognized boundaries of a country are.

Intellectual property is a new concept legally (copyright, trademark, and patent law were all written with the assumption that intellectual property did not exist, and for the public good, certain “property-like” rights would be temporarily granted to the creators)

There’s no guarantee that “intellectual property” will stick as a concept, as some of the conflicting concepts we will have to give up in order to implement intellectual property are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, “free speech”, “culture (which is merely a collection of IP owned by the general public”, and “property”.

The current law in practice is a combination of what you can get away with, what you are willing to fight for, and what you are willing to stand up for even if you lose.

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Oh please, I have all the music I ever wanted on my 20GB jukebox, and its always in my pocket. There is nothing on my computer or in my house that anyone case use against me. SUCKERS!!!!!!

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