Hmmm. People will “devolve” to what they did before they could file-share so easily over the Internet: They’ll burn copies and snail mail the mothers. Hey, maybe the Post Office will make money!

The prevailing view (rationalization) erroneously holds that the entertainment industry is greedy and deserves to get less. But it is always the worker bees that take the first and biggest hit.

Well I can’t speak for the piracy of TV and film, but as far as music goes, speaking as a musician, the people who lose out ARE the greedy executives/mega pop stars. The true starving musicians have always made money off touring and merchandise, NOT album sales. In this new internet age, all music should be freely available to everyone, that’s not a rationilization, it’s inevitable and an excellent way of sharing and connecting musicians around the world. It’s never the underground, starving artists who complain about this, it’s always the record industries and millionaire megastars like Metallica. If one tries to profit of another’s music, copyright should be enforced, but album sales are dead. Trying to change that would be like trying to revive someone who has been dead for a decade.

If this is implemented, it will be interesting to see if it is effective. As an increasing number of people view this kind of theft as morally acceptable, having a way to stigmatize its practitioners is essential.

The prevailing view (rationalization) erroneously holds that the entertainment industry is greedy and deserves to get less. But it is always the worker bees that take the first and biggest hit. It’s the regular people with real mortgages and kids to raise that are let go as a result of the revenue loss.

The inability (unwillingness) of people to connect the economic dots, especially in large social structures, is disappointing. Even something as obvious as the disastrous long-term effects to a local economy of shopping at walmart seems to escape most. And when the tent cities start to crop up, we look for someone, anyone but ourselves, to blame.