"the natural inclination of anyone who is struck by a piece of creative work is to share it"

Awesome article by Cory Doctorow 'Why I Copyfight', where he succinctly describes how copyright became such a huge issue in our lives out of nowhere and why the issue is so important for everyone to understand. Excerpt:

"Copyright law valorizes copying as a rare and noteworthy event. On the Internet, copying is automatic, massive, instantaneous, free, and constant. Clip a Dilbert cartoon and stick it on your office door and you're not violating copyright. Take a picture of your office door and put it on your homepage so that the same co-workers can see it, and you've violated copyright law, and since copyright law treats copying as such a rarefied activity, it assesses penalties that run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each act of infringement. "