The legal system is intended to balance the interests of people against each other. Protections for one person come at the cost of liberties for another, ownership of property for one person comes at the cost of need for another. When these balances are tipped too far to one direction or the other, the inherent fairness expected and demanded of law is lost, and it is not surprising when people abandon their faith in it, for justice, from their perspective, is to be found only outside its domains. It's hard to imagine, therefore, that anything different would happen in the wake of the proposed European Union Directive for the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, which removes from people rights they have had since time began, and which adds to the measure an enforcement mechanism resembling thuggery more than policing. "If you make a copy of a CD and give it to your mother, there are provisions within this directive for recording industry officials to raid your house, and there are similar provisions for doing things like freezing your bank account before there is any kind of hearing." Greater enforcement in the defense of an unjust law has never engendered compliance, and it won't here. It instead sets the stage for a prolonged conflict, an underground war of ideas and covert resistance, the infliction of needless harm on numerous innocents, and widespread distrust - and contempt - for a legal system that would allow this to happen. It was a bad idea in the United States, where the DMCA has forced any real innovation overseas, and it is a bad idea for Europe. It should be stopped, now, before it causes social and political damage that cannot be repaired.
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