"Casual Piracy"

So, I've been keeping up with the Spore DRM fiasco, and I've noticed a number of comments from individuals who identify something they call "casual piracy." In a nutshell, these people believe that lending your legally purchased content to friends or family constitutes copyright infringement. I'm fucking speechless.

This bears repeating -- remember the First-Sale Doctrine. It's a hard fought-for right that grants consumers the ability to do whatever they wish with their copyrighted materials after the first sale. Consumers can give away, lend, or sell their copyrighted materials to whomever they wish without compensating the copyright holder so long as no further copies of the materials are made. This means that, and I can't stress this enough, lending your PC games to friends and/or family for non-commercial use is not copyright infringement.

Hold onto your rights, people!