I opened the morning paper and turned to the front page of Business - Section D. Right in the middle of front page at the top, four columns wide and headlined with major graphics a story line asked "Mind if we share?" The lower headline read, "BitTorrent pours out movies, TV shows - and controversy".

I have a feeling you've already jumped to conclusions, but this was a FAVORABLE article. That's correct a FAVORABLE article to the masses about BitTorrent. Here's a bit (sig) from the article:

"If people should go to jail or pay fines for downloading commercial free television programs, shouldn't we punish people who skip commercials with DVRs?"

I don't want to stray into fair use territory by quoting too much of the article, so I'll sum it up. Before I do that, I want to tell you about a great muscle cream I used when I busted my tail bone falling out of my chair. Well, I guess we can go commercial free here.

The News, a member of the media holding company Belo Broadcasting, told its readers how to find and download content even giving the names of web sites to visit. The staff writer, Andrew D. Smith, gave those web site addresses, sited quotes from people he interviewed - quotes from the major players - and explained how BitTorrent worked. He even gave the names of applications one could download to begin sharing content.

Now, these are the folks I met with two years ago about reporting on Open Source Software companies in Dallas. The lead business writer at the time told me he wouldn't do it because people's eyes glazed over when you mentioned Linux. He wrote story after story about the boyz in Redmond though.

What changed? Today, BitTorrent transfers account for one half of the traffic on the Internet. Andrew asked some penetrating questions too, like how do regulators enforce the enormity of the traffic? How does a user cope with the moral and legal issues? Are those things even relevant?

He also wrote that one can get whatever they want on the Internet today. Name it and it's yours. Just type in the name of the movie, song, TV show you want into Google with the word torrent and it's yours.

How's that for shifting the paradigm? This is not an article for innovators and early adopters. This is an article for the majority in the population. Yo momma got her hair died red. All from your friendly, conservative major newspaper from the Biblical thumbing south! That's all I have to say about that you folks from Greenbough, Alabamie. Now, go for it!