The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality

There's an interesting (but not surprising) article in the New York Times about differences in perspective between the coming generation and the current in regards to intellectual property.

This of course created plenty of conversation on Slashdot (most of it half baked) but still enough motivation to get me to post this....

It's simply impossible to prevent sharing of media. I mean literally impossible! There's nothing you can do to stop it (unless you have a dooms day device in your garage?).

All the effort spent trying to stop it is literally wasted!

It seemed to me from both the NYT article and Slashdot comments people felt these kids should feel guilty, like they're doing something wrong? The reality is these kids realize our outdated views on Copyright have NO (you read that right 'NO' ) value in today's world.

They understand that we're all better off when information is shared freely and they also understand there's no practical way to differentiate media from other types of information. They are correctly choosing to accept shared media as a consequence of free information exchange.

They also I'm sure realize the impact this will have on their futures. I'm sure they understand that the media industry is a service industry and that they will have to live off the work they do (not the work they've already done) in the future.

So even though everyone from the article and Slashdot seemed to imply these kids just don't get it. I think it's just the opposite. They are the ones that really do get it!