Time's Person of the Year? You., originally uploaded by The Shifted Librarian.

"...It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes....

And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you."

- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

I've settled into a routine during my commute in which I listen to music and read on the train and then watch video on the bus. The music is from my existing collection or it's new music I've purchased from online sites like AllofMP3.

As I've noted in the past, the video part is a little more difficult. Or at least, it's more difficult for me to legally watch video because my iPod doesn't want to work with the iTunes store. So I have taken to ripping the DVDs I get through the mail in order to watch them on the bus. I don't share the resulting file with anyone, I don't upload it anywhere, and I delete it once I've finished watching it, but technically I'm breaking the law because I'm circumventing the copyright protection on the disc. Personally, I think it's a bad law, and on the scales of justice I liken it to jaywalking rather than murder.

I'm not the only one grappling with this dilemma. Eric Zorn at the Chicago Tribune is asking questions about copying and copyright in regards to libraries and his readers are responding.

I think it's pretty obvious I'm in the "no" camp of responses on his post. Join in the discussion and let Eric know what you think. I think the big takeaway from the discussion is confirmation that in this day and age, corporations lobbying for their own interests have weighted copyright law against the public interest to the point where if public libraries didn't already exist, it would be impossible to even imagine starting them.

On a side note, Andy Rooney clearly doesn't live the digital life, let alone understand it.