And by "liked" I mean "a neat role playing sensitive idea that totally screwed you if you ever lost the codewheel." You can still download those games at places like Abandonia, usually cracked, though in some cases "cracked" just means "we scanned the codewheel when we uploaded the game." Since SSI no longer exists and WotC bought TSR years ago, I am not sure whose copyright is being violated there.

Not that I would know anything about any of that first hand, of course....

It has always been fairly easy to copy things; even before movable type printing presses Medieval monks did it (in fact, I have heard that was the REAL reason Latin became so ubiquitous during the Dark Ages: Because much of what those monks did in their cloisters for centuries was copying ancient Greek texts as Latin ones.) The real issue is the penalty for illegally doing so, both in terms of recouping lost revenue and deterrence.

To date, the most baffling--but popular--argument I have seen in this debate is "existing laws are adequate; the media industry is only pushing this because they know they will never receive the fines assessed for illegal copying." Existing laws are unnecessary and the industry is only demanding new ones because existing laws are so ineffectual.

Remember the horror a few years ago at grammas being hit with $500 fines for EACH of the 300 songs her grandsons (or one of his friends) downloaded on her computer? Remember the widespread laughter when people refused to pay those fines and the RIAA had no way to MAKE them? Well, the RIAA responded by pushing laws to send people to PRISON over it; now who is laughing? I have ZERO sympathy for people who force someones hand then get slapped down for it, particularly when they take food out of peoples mouths for the sake of free entertainment.

Are liabilities for and definitions of "piracy" far too broad now, as they were then? Sure, and that is something sorely needing correction in these bills. However, that people WILL continue to thumb their nose at legitimate copyright protections on the grounds of "freedom of access to OTHER peoples speech" demonstrates (one of) the needs for new laws. From all I have read and heard, SOPA and PIPA are miserable examples of such laws, but there is a real problem here that requires addressing, and it is not going away, nor will Congress ignore it forever due to mass netizen outcry. That is before we even get into things like Wikileaks getting the names of Al Qaeda informants in Pakistan out of the Pentagon, posting them on their site and responding to DoD requests to take them down with "screw off, imperialists!"

Give them a reasonable viable Plan B, and, no, "the media industry should make it easier to legally obtain their content" is not it. SOME piracy will always occur, and thus some effective legal remedy will always be needed; there are not enough people with the moral fiber to spend their limited income on things they can easily obtain for free. When genuine piracy occurs, content producers have the right to enforce their copyrights, and doing so does not infringe on anyones right to free speech. Your right to swing your arm for fun ends where it takes food out of other peoples mouths.