Billions? This is a really far fetched twisted logic. There is no evidence to suggest that a downloaded song is a song not sold. Sure some persons may not buy a CD because the song they wanted was downloaded, but some persons may buy a CD after tasting a download. Recently a Spanish judge refused to award damages to a record producers based on the claim that the sale of pirated copies reduced the sales of the bona fide records. The Spanish judge said he was not convinced of the economic theory presented by the record companies. I interpret that to mean that there was no empirical evidence of correlation between the sale of pirated copies and the sale the bona fide records.

Then the idea of money for downloading in other countries is absurd if money from those contries did not flow into Kazaa coffers.

In the end the best decision is that if there is no viable filter for all types of files, there cannot be a prohibition against sharing and downloading unless the Internet is shut down. After all the browser is an even bigger inducer to infringement that the p2p programs. Just think, the “Set as Wallpaper” in just an invitation to take an authors work and copy it into windows for your viewing pleasure, without the author’s permission. Ditto for the “Save as” option of the browser.

Damn it, we are all thieve infringer (per RIAA) and “we” include all the judges.

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com