illegal or not?

I loved napster. I thought it was but a dream when I first heard about it - and then I spent the next two months downloading every song I had ever loved. I almost failed calculus because of that (just kidding mom, I almost failed calculus 'cause I was a moron. But I did well in calculus 2. so there.) This seems like the right stance to me: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1433670&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312. Headline: "French Lawmakers Endorse File-Sharing". My natural reaction here is to say 'Well, if the french are for it then I must be against it. But here's an interesting quote: "The actors' and musicians' branch of France's largest trade union, the CFDT, said the plan "would mean the death of our country's music and audiovisual industries." Well, if French Unions are against it, then i'm definitely in favor. French unions are the equivalent of my kryptonite: speak only french, have no desire to work, are communists in all but name, hate americans and western civilization and so forth. They can all go to hell or Algeria or somewhere where they aren't bothering good hardworking people. As for this story, the reason lawmakers went against legislation was this: "Under the original proposals, those caught pirating copy-protected material would have faced $360,000 in fines and up to three years in jail." Why? For downloading a copy of the Black Eyed Peas "My Humps"? Really, well perhaps the lawmakers didn't like the fact that they would be sending their children and their parents (all those Sinatra lovers over there) to jail so some media-whore rapper could buy a bigger crack rock. I'm with you there, Jaques. Vive La Revolution or something like that in French. Joyoux Noel