It is really about the “first edition” Internet generation’s habits and preferred methods of getting content. If the “house” had been set up properly to begin with, it would have had a strong foundation supporting existing infrastructure inclusive of copyright laws and all other laws of the land and we wouldn’t be experiencing this mass confusion and divisiveness.

From the beginning ISP’s should have been charging by consumption. That would have made it fairly simple to segregate copyrighted materials from fair use and other types of content. The fees could have easily been in line with what we are paying today for access. For example, you watch a movie online and you used up 100mb of your 7 gig allocation. You download some music and you use up 10mb of your allocation and so on. In the meantime, the ISP is depositing .01 per mb used into a collective consisting of rights holders. In turn the rights holders would democratically split up the pie.

Viola! Everybody’s happy and it is the fairest way for ALL concerned.

Fortunately, this is exactly how mobile networks are set up. So let’s get this done!

Legally, you’re correct. There’s no specific requirement for each and every rights-holder to make their works available in a certain fashion in order to achieve copyright protection (and such a requirement would be rather difficult to effectively enforce). However, I (and most of my friends) are far more likely to spend money on a rights-holder who is receptive to our preferred use of digital technology. If the Beatles are more interested in protecting values I don’t share (owning a physical copy of the CD, buying an album at a time) I’m not especially interested in owning their music.

As a business matter, I would expect their actions to naturally increase piracy, which it is their right to attempt to prosecute. Like leaving a sports car in a bad neighborhood, their (in my opinion dumb) actions do not absolve infringers of guilt. However, any attempt to use the resulting lack of sales to push for more laws treading on others’ rights (restrictions on technology, bad copyright laws, or other arbitrary harassment of non-infringers) should be rejected. Ditto for demanding TARP funds to keep their business alive if no-one buys their product

We must remember that eliminating piracy will not make purchasing the songs any easier and will only partially increase revenue(if any). Without the option of piracy, many users will simply spend their money on other things.