"War" on File-Sharing is like "War" on Drugs

What I find most striking about Tom’s post is that advocates of copyright maximalism are becoming increasingly candid about the tensions between their vision of copyright law and traditional civil liberties like privacy and due process of law. Patrick is right that the war on file sharing is like the war on drugs: there’s just no way to stop it without shredding our civil liberties in the process.

The parallel is a good one: just as the "war" on drugs is a total failure - putting millions needlessly in jail, costing billions, and succeeding only in boosting criminal activity - so a "war" on file sharing will be utterly disproportionate, and utterly futile.