so short sighted
I remember back in the day when you had to get 'eval copies' from various ftp servers or newsgroups/IRC. Then P2P came along and was niche for a good few years before going mainstream. Most people didn't have a clue about file-sharing until Kazaa. Then, all of a sudden, everyone it seemed had Kazaa and then later Limewire. Back a few years, and there was a client released called Earthstation5. It never got anywhere, because it was shot down by commenters on sites like Slyck, because it was based in Israel and the admin was confrontational. But it did feature a built in 'gatling' proxy. A feature that, at the time I thought was the direction everything would go.
Now it seems they are serious about affecting, not just a small minority of file-sharers with huge fines, but the majority with policies such as 3 strikes. If this happens and suddenly, 1000s of people are inconvenienced by having their connections terminated, then the need to address the issue will become mainstream and the likelihood is that better clients will be written, perhaps including a proxy on every client to get round the problem.
As many have commented before, this is just delaying the inevitable. Rather than continually trying to criminalise people, these industries need to engage their customers and redesign their business models, or face things getting to a point where the horse has well and truly bolted.
I notice, that downloads are now available from Play.com at 192/320Kbits for 70p a track/7.95 an album. Cool, a DRM free service with higher bit-rates, what's not to like? Well, the price for a start. It just doesn't add up. What percentage of a song's revenue is attributable to physical manufacture and distribution? For example, searching for Kylie Minogue - X on Play and HMV, reveals that the price is the same for MP3 or CD, £6.99. Now it could be said that digital files are currently priced the same as physical products, to offset each other, and that when the industry no longer has to distribute CDs, that the price will fall to reflect that. But by distrusting their customers, they have encouraged their customers to distrust them.
The way out for them it seems, is to bluff by reducing the price of downloads dramatically and weaning people away from file-sharing. Once people are accustomed to buying their songs again, cheaply and without 'fear' of retribution, perhaps they'll stay when the price naturalises back to roughly where the industry wants it.
To try and march the people who use P2P back to purchasing by stomping around like a bullying adolescent, just isn't going to work. If anything, it's going to further alienate their existing purchasing customers.
In short, it's hard to sympathise, when you have an industry so seemingly incapable of adapting to what people want. It just appears that they don't care.