That said, how can we discriminate between peer-to-peer sharing that is legal vs. illegal? It just seems all too complicated. Even the rules within one country are complicated so what about on a global level?

My understanding is that in the US, using your VCR to time-shift a TV program is legal. That is, you can record the program for viewing at a later time. If that is the case, is it legal to share what you recorded? It seems like a logical extension. That is, anyone could record and view later so why not have one person recording and sharing?

Then we have books. Copyright law seems to be a bit strange. First, books written under one version magically ended up under another. That is, authors wrote a book knowing there was one set of rules and then they changed. This even applies to dead authors. But, we have fair use which is equally strange. It says that we can make a copy for educational purposes. But, what does that really mean? Here in Nicaragua it seems to mean that you make photocopies of books for use in school. While that makes sense, it is probably not what the author of a textbook had in mind.

Finally, we have the distribution of revenue from materials under copyright. In the case of a print book done through a major publisher, the author getting 5% of the revenue is wishful thinking. While the argument is that the publisher took a chance, is is realistic that is is 95% or more of the chance?

OK, I don't have a solution until we all move to a Resource Based Economy but, in the mean time, what is legitimate on bittorrent, what should be and what is not?