I'm one of those weird people who respect copyright.  I think a person should have ability to create a work and decide, for a reasonably short time, how that work is distributed.  I'm all for remixing and the fair use rules around excerpt and parody and critique and so forth, but I don't think copying a song or movie verbatim falls under this.  I think verbatim copies will ultimately cause less and lower quality content to be created (and only the recording and movie industries can save themselves by coming to the party with sane options to get hold of content that we can play anywhere we want to).  So I just don't do sharing of movies or music or software.

I often get asked how I do it - how I live in a world where 99% of the people I deal with receive these verbatim copies against the rights granted by the copyright and "profit" from it (ie, don't pay, while I do).  How can I not get sucked into the world of constantly and easily available access to a myriad different forms of content?  Quite simply, I just don't let myself get interested in it.  I don't buy into the hype of every band and every movie out there.  I'm fairly certain that I won't die or live a less fulfilling life if I don't follow suit.

It's easy to resist a temptation that isn't all that tempting.  (It's also easy to resist temptation when the alternatives out there are as good or better than that being hyped - open source and open content through things like Creative Commons makes respecting copyright very easy...)

Which is why I've barely watched Apollo and Silverlight drift by with all their hype.  Flex too.  Until all aspects of their technology are codified in a standard and there is at least one open source implementation that is easily available, it's really just not worth my time to be interested in them.  There've been tons of other proprietary systems out there.  None of them has interested me particularly.  There'll be tons more, I'm sure.  Somehow, I haven't been tempted before.  Somehow, there's always been a way to avoid subjecting myself and other people to proprietary systems or standards in my personal life and my work life.  I don't think that's going to change.  Not only is open standards and open source a good thing in the abstract, but it is about the only way to build something that lasts.

Mark Pilgrim provides a slightly more spicy take on the Silly season (and, well, a nice title, which I'll remix and not copy verbatim...)