Editorial: A picture-perfect quandary

"Adding to the already very muddy waters are those stuck in the fringes of each camp. No matter who says otherwise, there are many people who turn away from legal software as their legal copies don't work (while the cracked ones all do). There are also people who let the light bulb turn on that someone is profiting from all of the piracy – all of the major sites are packed with ads, which makes one lose quite a bit of faith in the whole "robin-hood" ideals that the groups attempt to foster.

Let's strip the wilful naivety away – copy protection and piracy are both businesses that have sprung up to play on our fears as producers and consumers. Neither side is doing it out of the goodness of their own heart. By rallying behind one, the other gets a new reason to go a step farther. And the producers bite into the apple fed by the DRM makers the same way we bite into the one fed by the pirates..