"Smith and several others at the hearing noted that selling illegally copied materials can be more lucrative than selling illegal drugs, and several at the hearing compared the copyrighted materials trade to the drug trade. Illegally copied materials can have markups of 900 percent, Smith noted."

That's the biggest pile of horseshit ever. The whole reason there is bootlegging and piracy if because people want stuff free. Even for those who pay for "warez", they're not going to pay 9x what its worth retail. What kind of fuking sense is that?

I think the article meant that the pirates had a 9oo% profit margin over what it costs to steal and reproduce a movie or cd.

I'll start to feel bad about getting music from KaZaa-lite at about the same time the music industry decides to compensate me for all the records and 8-tracks that I can't play any more.

"...but the hearing produced no concrete examples of that happening."

Who needs concrete evidence these days?..not the U.S. House Judiciary Committee or Bush...

Fuck, stuff like this just pisses me off. Kazaa = Terrorism. How the fuck do you link these? Plus, can you imagine getting a 33 month jail sentence for downloading music. I think that that is a little excessive. Greed is becoming a really big problem.

I thought greed always has been a really big problem.

are you kidding?

greed is one of the primary human motivators!