The sharing habit and dynamics of "content consuming" people and the social phenomenon are difficult to understand. The suggestion is to keep doing whatever you like to do as long as you don't get sued by entities like RIAA or MPAA who makes this practice a profitable business model. This could mean that you abide by the copyright law, or you sneak around the corner. Fortunately, at least the "content producing" part of the equation is beginning to take shape.

Some musicians, producers or artists simply don't care so much about profit, and they just would like to reach out to as many people as they can. These are typically talents who have not enjoyed commercial success yet, but they have other means to support themselves. It was traditionally expensive to build the media distribution network (radio/TV stations, retail stores, etc.), and the network was available only to a few selected talents. The Internet makes it available to any content producers to cheaply distribute their creations.

Eventually, most talents want to reap commercial success if they make it, so the question is, would the use of Internet as distribution medium forfeit their chance to make money? Fortunately, there are labels like Magnatune who have more Internet-friendly terms and does not prevent the musician from making money. YouTube is also sharing advertising profit with video makers. We now have more Internet-savvy middleman helping creative talents keep the cake and eat it.

At least, considering the terms of these new distributors, it is much easier to bypass aggressive middleman represented by RIAA and MPAA. Under the new terms, you get to abide by the copyright law and hopefully also satisfy your sharing habits.

As long as both content producers and content consumers choose the middleman wisely, we wouldn't have the abusive copyright litigation problems we see today.