We brush against copyright rules every day. A well-known example is the local restriction we face on Apple’s iStore. And just as Syria’s embattled president Bashar al-Assad has learnt to circumvent sanctions and restrictions by simply registering iTunes at an American address, South African users are also trying to avoid the increasing mesh of terms and conditions governing software use in this country.

It may come as a surprise to some that downloading copied music isn’t fundamentally illegal. In fact, the Netherlands, Canada, Spain and Panama do not impose copyright restrictions. While it is legal to download copyrighted material in Canada, it may not be redistributed (for example via peer-to-peer networks).