When Elephants Dance is the single best survey of the technological, political, and legal aspects of the current intellectual property power grab. It weaves together the complete story and history of the issue.
If you only read one article, make it this one. If you think I’m a zealot on this issue, the 15 minutes it will take you to read the article will prove you right or wrong. I’m pretty confident where you’ll come out.
Probably the best summary I’ve read comes from this article:
As security and cryptography expert Bruce Schneier explains it to Mike Godwin: If you think about it, the entertainment industry does not want people to have computers; theyre too powerful, too flexible, and too extensible. They want people to have Internet Entertainment Platforms: televisions, VCRs, game consoles, etc.