And whose fault is that? It's the ignorant citizens who keep electing these pigs to office.

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Unfortunately, our society (at least in Canada and the U.S.) faces sophisticated issues in a very unsophisticated democratic framework. In the Canadian framework, parties hold all of the power over the representatives, even though we do vote for representatives. So there are essentially four voices being heard on the Parliament, which is a huge concentration of power. A large portion of the voting population has no voice whatsoever, simply because they voted for a candidate who will never gain office or for a party who will never gain a seat. That leaves many people voting strategically, rather than by their conscious, which means that they are stuck voting for a mainline candidate who most closely agrees with them on the "big issues." Since copyright laws have been distorted to be "the artists" vs. "the pirates" there is no hope of it becoming one of those big issues.

Likewise, some software developers may be planning to update or re-release a work at a later date. Consider Nintendo, for example, who has created a "virtual console" on the Wii with games going back 23 years that have been released for new generations to enjoy.

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The irony here is that they probably re-released old games because of the pirates, because those were the people who let companies like Nintendo know that there were people interested in the old games -- and maybe people who were interested in paying for old games.

But the other point to consider with old games is that trademarks usually get involved. Even if Nintendo was okay with a 23 year old game being pirated, they still have to protect the trademarks that are embodied by those old games in order to preserve the franchise.

Granted, there are some who have released their works (Apple in regards to System 6.0.8 and Cliff Johnson in regards to his old games are two notable examples) or wanted them to be free in the first place.

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In this respect, I have to side with the open source people the most. Make it free, and give people the freedom to do what they please with it (including improve upon it). The type of free software you get from Apple is just a token gesture.

However, not everyone can exist in a "utopia" world where ideas can be freely shared simply because, for some of us, there is a fear that someone will take the idea, patent it, copyright it, and sell it themselves.

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Uh, free and freedom are utopia? I've spent the past few years teaching. Some of it free in the gratis sense, and all of it free in the sense that my students are able to do whatever they wish with what I teach them. That includes taking my job, as one has! Quite often this concept of free is not one seeking after utopia, but it is one of principles: doing unto others as you would have others do unto you. I don't like it when people say that I can do X, Y, and Z with what they offer me (or with what I pay for); and I dislike it even more when they say that I can't do A, B, or C. So if I like it when others offer me a great deal of freedom, why should I take freedom away from others.