People here seem pretty vigilant on downing and belittling these labled "pirates" and their belief that any and all information should be free.
I think the idea of Intellectual Property is rather a bit silly, sure it is a common practice now days to claim an idea as your's and your's alone. An idea no one else can think and act upon?
People nowdays are often forced to sign non compete clauses (these are almost entirely in place to protect intellectual property of a company to maximize its profit) in order to get a job, then limiting their freedom to find their next job.
An intellectual property is a property that can never be taken away, can be reused indefinately, and can be modified into an indefinite multitudes of other ideas to be resold again and again and again... Sounds like selling an unlimited resource at a limited resource's price. (Many useless rehashed products come to mind o.o )
If Intellectual properties were done away with (All information was free). This would free up resources often spent in redundant technology research, tens of thousands of lawsuit cases, Anti-competitive patenting, patent sitters, unemployable people, etc.
This is an interesting lecture over the legal side of Intellectual Properties http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1jdYIMKPiA
Also, here is a fair article over the global economic ramifications of patents. (and intellectual properties in general) http://fare.tunes.org/articles/patents.html The cost to society far exceeds the benefit of the owner of the intellectual monopoly.
