But you can't blame the government, how are they supposed to stop something that occurs all over the world? A new bill called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeit Act is geared toward cracking down foreign websites that participate heavily in bootlegging and copyright infringement. For more information on this bill, check out this article in the Los Angeles TImes. This U.S. bill is a strong step forward since many foreign countries like China - and not only the U.S. - contribute to a significant amount of the expanding infringement practices. However, as always with issues as complex as online music piracy, it will have issues of its own, and by the time legislation works out all the kinks in the bill, online infringement "pirates" will probably have found new loopholes that make the bill out of date, and thus, ineffective.
Even if the U.S. government did come up with a bill that magically fixed all of the online infringement issues we see today, is it still too late? We as consumers have all felt the power of being able to get free music, and movies, and software in mass quantities at the click of a button. Will the world be able to go back to the way it was, with people spending $20 dollars on a single DVD or CD? Most people refuse to even purchase songs for the measly price of $0.99 cents on iTunes! So even if every infringement website in the world is somehow shut down by government, it is unlikely that the entertainment industry will snap back to the way it was before the Internet. The industry is not (and will never be) dead, but it will also never be the same.
- JB
