In the wake of the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) decision to pursue legal action against Norwegian teenager Jon Lech Johansen for the cracking of simple Region Coding features on his legally purchased DVD, the crew of the Inquirer has received an interesting letter. Have the MPAA and RIAA got it all wrong?

The MPAA is making the same mistakes that the music industry is making. They are alienating their paying customers because they can't catch those of us who use P2P. I am dumb-founded that the MPAA can push litigation against a customer who actually paid for their media when all Jon did was crack some region codes. Jon PAID for the DVD which is something of a miracle for a kid his age. Almost all the teens and early twenties I know get their music and movies via Kazza and Emule.

 

I know a lot of people who have stopped going to the movies or renting movies because they have DVD-Rip databases in their homes. Why bother paying for the movies when you can download most of the big releases before your local video store gets them in stock?