Because I forgot to set my DVR, I'm a pirate.

To give an example consider the freeway. Where I live most cars drive 70 to 75 mph without causing a safety risk and I know it's CHP policy to ignore anyone driving less than 10 miles over the limit. But they could pull over all those people because the official speed limit is 65 mph. So they've established a speed limit that's stricter than it needs to be and have encouraged the breaking of that limit. This allows them to pull over virtually anyone they want for any cause they feel like.

This is true throughout our legal system. There's actually a recently published book called "3 Felonies a Day: How The Feds Target the Innocent" that makes this case quite well. The premise being every American inadvertently commits 3 felonies a day just by living a normal life.

So while the blog post is right to point out the illogical nature of IP-Law he should understand it was written that way by design to allow for easier prosecution.

(prosecution might not be the right word since IP issues are civil but you get the point)

I agree the letter of the law can be silly & content owners tend to cling to old business models rather than innovate, but please give credit where credit is due. Fox & others are making programming available to us via different methods.