I was skeptical about this David Pogue piece when I started reading it, because he started here:

It was early in 2005, and a little hackware program called PyMusique was making the rounds of the Internet. PyMusique was written for one reason only: to strip the copy protection off of songs from the iTunes music store.

The program's existence had triggered an online controversy about the pros, cons and implications of copy protection. But to me, there wasn't much gray area. "To me, it's obvious that PyMusique is designed to facilitate illegal song-swapping online," I wrote. And therefore, it's wrong to use it.

His readers set him straight on that, and I would have as well (heck, I should go through my archives - maybe I did :) ).

However, it got a lot more interesting as he sketched out talks he did in front of various audiences, asking whether X was wrong, where X is some kind of file copying - ranging from the reasonable (backup, damaged original, etc) to the clearly illegal. The interesting bit was this: most audiences, people's reactions vary. However:

Recently, however, I spoke at a college. It was the first time I'd ever addressed an audience of 100 percent young people. And the demonstration bombed.

In an auditorium of 500, no matter how far my questions went down that garden path, maybe two hands went up. I just could not find a spot on the spectrum that would trigger these kids' morality alarm. They listened to each example, looking at me like I was nuts.

Finally, with mock exasperation, I said, "O.K., let's try one that's a little less complicated: You want a movie or an album. You don't want to pay for it. So you download it."

There it was: the bald-faced, worst-case example, without any nuance or mitigating factors whatsoever.

"Who thinks that might be wrong?"

Two hands out of 500.

Now, never mind what you think of that - just consider what it means in terms of the legal regime: if that opinion is widespread amongst the 20 and under set, just how much longer do you think copyright as it's currently understood is sustainable? At some point, as this generation attains political power, things are going to change, period.

If your business depends in any way on current copyright law, it's time to start looking at a different model - because your old one is going to get killed off. It's already happening at the margins, in ways that are not legally sanctioned. Over the next 2 decades (at worst), it's going to start going legitimate. The time to think about the implications are now - and I really don't think trying to preserve the status quo is going to work out. It doesn't really matter what you or I think...

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