I didn't get a chance to post yesterday because of the frenzy of activity surrounding what I'm going to talk about: there finally was a legal decision regarding file sharing that was made correctly.
The RIAA and MPAA juggernaut, fearing what they allege to be "piracy" in the trade of music and video files, have tried to pick off each P2P service. They managed to effectively shut down Napster, having a court rule that Napster was liable for copyright infringement its users may have committed.
In the wake of that decision, the players in the P2P space readjusted their businesses and their technology and introduced new client software. The RIAA and MPAA then went after them. And thanks to the EFF, they didn't succeed.
Assuming the decision survives on appeal (and it's a near certainty that the US District Court ruling will be appealed) it correctly makes a delineation between the Napster P2P model and the new model of P2P technology, it correctly applies the Sony Betamax decision (1984 or thereabouts), and it notes that tools that allow for legitimate uses cannot be banned because some people might use them for illicit uses.
I read the decision and found it to be quite readable. I recommend all people interested in this issue to read it for themselves. It's written in plain (enough) language and does not require extensive knowledge of the issue in order to understand.