Lawrence Lessig has a great article in the Wall Street Journal that is worth reading:

We are in the middle of something of a war here -- what some call "the copyright wars"; what the late Jack Valenti [who was the long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America] called his own "terrorist war," where the "terrorists" are apparently our kids. ... Peer-to-peer file sharing is the enemy in the "copyright wars." Kids "stealing" stuff with a computer is the target. The war is not about new forms of creativity, not about artists making new art....Yet every war has its collateral damage. These creators are this war's collateral damage. The extreme of regulation that copyright law has become makes it difficult, sometimes impossible, for a wide range of creativity that any free society...

There is also some good commentry on the article here .