Here are some pages within the Recording Industry Association of America's site about this topic. One of the most interesting things on one of the pages is that they acknowledge that piracy will never stop completely but the goal is to get it down to a "manageable level". Kind of what Who Moi and I were talking about above. That said, I personally think the part of the law that is too stringent is limiting someone's ability to make copies that are really for personal use and people will never stop making compilations for friends -- we ALL did that. Hopefully, when you turn someone onto an artist you like, it will create a new fan and additional streams of revenue for that artist. But, I do understand the need to formalize these things as a deterrent and drive the point home -- it still is technically illegal. That said, I don't condone illegal downloading where someone should be getting paid at all. Intent and conscience are the keys.

http://www.riaa.com/faq.php - FAQ for students but very informative
http://www.musicunited.org/2_thelaw.html - The law
http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.p..._for_consumers - How to recognize fraud

I didn't peruse the entire site of the Motion Picture Association of America's site but here's the main page -- you can find similar information re: piracy here:

http://www.mpaa.org/