According to this New York Times article, the inability (or unwillingness) of American officials to enforce US copyright and intellectual property law abroad has led to a thriving black market for scientific and engineering software that is barred from export due to the potential security risks of such softwares' dissemination. Included in this group of software are programs capable of "designing rockets or nuclear reactors or predicting the path of a cloud of anthrax spores." The article talks a lot about the futile efforts of programmers to get the government to do something about this black market.
One part of the article that should especially interest those turned off by the MPAA and RIAA's actions: "Though the case against piracy is passionately argued by paid advocates for the music and film industries and Silicon Valley, the Business Software Alliance's own surveys show that most consumers find it hard to summon outrage. They see the fight as a way to ensure that Bill Gates and Britney Spears get every penny coming to them. Not all concerns about software piracy, however, are about ensuring that the rich become richer. When software like Visual Light shows up on the wrong desktop, issues of national security come into play."