Death Note

I just typed this in a group discussion on Goodreads .  Just wanted to share my thoughts on my blogger also.  Like I said towards the end, I will be trying to dig into this a bit more.

 "So, I fellow DeviantArt user said that I should give Death Note a try. I at first avoided the manga because I was not really getting into it (granted, I only read a couple of pages) and from what I heard of the story lines, I felt like it wouldn't be my kind of show.
So, I have given Death Note a second shot, and it's been interesting so far. (Maybe I've been having a craving for dark series or something lately. I've been getting into Hell Girl also). But, what I noticed was that Death Note has had some copycats. One was actually a real murder in Belgium. In Wikipedia, I counted five accounts of students having a "Death Note" notebook and writing classmates and teachers names of people who they didn't like. 4 of them were middle school and 1 was a senior in high school.
Anyway, speaking all of this, I am curious into doing more research into this. I'm wondering if there has been more accounts of this outside of United States or if it is about the same amount in other countries.
I don't know how popular Death Note is, but I do notice that there is an anime series, anime movies, live action movies, and (light?) novels out there of this.
Another random thought is how media (books, comics, movies, I mean every type of ...communication? Stories are a way of communicating I think) can positively or negatively effect our society and culture.
Hope you guys will forgive me for my random long rant.
Just one more thought, I wonder who's version of "justice" will win in the Death Note series."

Here's a link to the article I read on Wikipedia.
Also, here's the first episode.  It is also available on Youtube, but I feel like Hulu is more legal compared to Youtube.  So, if you really want to skip those commercials, go to Youtube.