Following last week's Backspin, reader Alex Gonzales (Sweetwater, Texas) wrote to me: "Just read your SOPA article and I guess I'm just not seeing the big picture. If the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) could put an end to online piracy and stop a lot of those damn viruses, maybe even stop hackers -- what's bad about that? You say bad for business, bad for Internet -- but how? How is stopping/policing the bad stuff on the Internet bad? Give me some real reasons as to why [SOPA/PIPA] is bad. And don't tell me to go read the SOPA/PIPA bills in their entirety."

The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft has lost its appeal in the copyright case against Perth-based ISP, iiNet. But it hasn't conceded that all is lost.

Nearly one in ten of all consumers in the UK, France, Germany and the US have admitted to watching illegally downloaded video contents, says Futuresource Consulting.

The UK Film Council has launched a search engine FindAnyFilm.com so that film buffs will be able to find when, where and how more than 30,000 movies are available, including on the Internet.

You might not realize it, but two out of every 10 of your co-workers might be using pirated software, according to industry statistics. You might be, too, for that matter, particularly if you work in manufacturing or at a small or midsize company with 100 to 500 PCs. You just might not know it.

With all the outrage over The Pirate Bay going legit, I think it's time to reconsider the merits of illegally media sharing. The world has changed since Napster introduced peer-to-peer file sharing in 1999, and the culture that made the practice seem necessary has transformed.