John Dvorak is considering moving to France. He thinks they have the right idea when it comes to limiting overzealous piracy enforcement by the entertainment industry.

[W]hile drug-dealing, cocaine use, murder, mayhem, armed robbery, rape, and illegal corporate shenanigans run rampant in the U.S.A., law enforcement has to be on the lookout for movie downloading, to protect Hollywood billionaires. Curiously, the police are often mocked and ridiculed in these movies. Ah, irony.

I watched Walk the Line the other night on DVD. The movie was OK, not great. But what really caught my attention was the ad at the beginning of the disc proclaiming that downloading or copying movies is stealing, then reminding us that stealing is bad.

This, of course, from the industry that brought us Thief, Heat, Reservoir Dogs, Grand Theft Auto, Oceans Eleven (and 12), The Italian Job... just to name a few.

Actually, stealing has been very good to Hollywood. And the days when the heist movies were morality plays, where the thief got it (not the money) in the end, are long gone. The thief today is generally the hero.

So I guess it's not stealing itself that is being discouraged by the entertainment industry --just stealing from the entertainment industry.