Editor’s note: This article represents the debut of Amanda Baker on Duality. Amanda is responsible for much of the site’s design and the fact that most of the articles here don’t have spelling mistakes. She’s an editor and writer extraordinaire, so listen up, noobs.

Vice President Joe Biden recently made a statement concerning the pirating of American movies and music by foreign websites. According to Reuters, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, among other officials, flanked Biden when he made this statement on Thursday, June 24:

“But piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It’s smash and grab. It ain’t no different than smashing a window at Tiffany’s and grabbing [merchandise].”

Besides the obvious grammatical errors, the VP has a point that we at Duality have been trying to make for a while. Pirating equals stealing, as Jerod articulated in his piracy rant. The fact that the federal government is taking an even more active stance on this issue is encouraging.

In an article posted on June 22, Maximum PC reported:

“The guidelines contain 33 recommendations. One major point is an intention to work with foreign governments to shut down infringing websites. As expected, Hollywood studios applaud the new list of recommendations. The movie and music industries contend that they are losing billions of dollars to piracy, though many have disputed the numbers. Biden also commented that ISPs should be cooperating with entertainment industry efforts to penalize users. He was likely referring to various plans for so-called ‘three strikes’ rules that would result in users being disconnected after repeated accusations of infringement.”

While this initiative probably won’t eradicate piracy off the face of the earth, it is a positive step forward in bringing awareness to theft in the multimedia industry. Hopefully this will be a big blow to the illegal websites that raise prices and make things harder for those of us who like to keep it legal.