It seems the only clear difference in the current debate is that digital forms of these media make possible to make an essentially lossless copy - although most of the copies floating around are in mp3 or divx formats that do have some loss of quality.

Thing is, nobody forced record or film companies to produce this higher-quality media. And who pays for it - the consumer, of course, who buys the CD, the player, the computer, and pays for the network connection that might be used to share that digitized content.

Given that we have paid for the technology, it seems like the government shouldn't be playing a role to enforce copy-protection schemes on consumers who don't want them because they will limit what they can do with that CD they bought, besides just not wanting the government to snoop on them.

Again, I am adamantly opposed to piracy for profit, and am also opposed to the idea that anyone should use file downloading as a way to never pay for music or movies.

But if we are in fact paying in various ways for these digital media, why do we not have any right to take advantage of their digital nature?

If a recording company or artist (to the extent that artists really control things) does not want their songs ever digitally copied -- why not put out a CD at the quality level of old analog recordings. Copies still could be made, but the result would of course remain at lower quality.

Many listeners would not notice the difference, and many others would not care that much.

Listeners who did care could simply decide not to buy those CDs.

Again, no one is forcing anyone to sell "bits".

Artists and producers who want full digital quality may have to deal with copying - and could charge more if they wanted to.

Now some people will argue that record companies need as much revenue as they can get from big-selling CDs to pay for the costs of finding new and original talent.

Ignoring for a moment that many such new artists have been ripped off by the companies, there was some truth to that in the old days - as artists rarely had the funds to get their music heard any other way.

But I think the options available to artists have broadened - issuing mp3s for download or a self-produced CD is no longer that costly. And many artists are finding they can sell their own works directly to fans - and keep more of the revenue.

Now if these works are digital, they still can be copied. However, I think true fans of such artists are not going to rely on free copies of the music - they want to support the artists, or at least enough of them do to give the artists a chance to become more popular.

The same probably goes for classical music - fans are going to have to step forward and support it, if they want to keep orchestras and musicians playing.

Being a real artist has never been easy. Some musicians want to share music - the Grateful Dead encouraged taping at shows, as have the Allman Brothers. This did not hurt the artists, it instead helped build a strong fan base.

Artists should be supported, but not at the cost of listeners losing basic rights in their own homes.

And the companies? Well free enterprise never guarantees that yesterday's business model works today.

As John Chambers says, deal with the world as it is, not the way you want it to be. And the government should stop trying to roll us back into that old world.