Why is it bad that the Fed is closing down illegal filesharing sites???
Because it is another step closer to becoming a totalitarian state/society...run by politicians in the pockets of big business. When it makes various laws to be upheld it's one thing, but when government becomes law enforcement, not to mention judge, jury and executioner as well, then it's time to be afraid... very afraid. Most of us are too young to remember Hitler's Germany, or Stalin's Russia, both were totalitarian states, but the history books tell us that we don't want to revisit those times.
Furthermore, the pursuance of copyright infringement is the right and responsibility of the copyright holder, in the civil courts.... not government, using public resources at taxpayers expense. It wouldn't be so bad if they were actually going after the counterfeiters who were profiting from pirated IP, but they're not... well not as actively as they could/should be. No, they're going after grannies whose grandkids (unbeknown to them) downloaded a few illegal songs on nanna's computer... and when the stress of it all kills granny, go after the 8 y/o Justin Beiber loving granddaughter.
The big companies have had our politicians bought and paid for for decades now, so they've been steadily expanding "rights" over time.
And now most of them are using those rights as weapons. When sales are down they cry "pirate" instead of looking at what's wrong with their own business practices.... and inevitably prices go up for paying customers. The thing is, are those so-called losses the result of piracy or bad management? A survey conducted by Torrentfreak or some such site a few years back suggested that more than 97% of respondants would never have purchased the movie/music had they not been able to download it via torrent, so it would seem to me that the losses are fabrications purely to evoke public and or government sympathy.
While it's wrong to avoid purchasing things by using them for free, the system has been butchered by the publishing titans to the point where I just can't feel any sympathy for them.
I stopped feeling sympathy for publishing titans and retail giants when they stopped giving a rat's arse about their customers some years ago... if they ever did, that is. These days it's more and more: "What about us/me?" Nah, I won't give a stuff until they start asking; "What about our customers?"...and mean it.
