[stonetools]

don't see him offering any actual evidence of this--he falls back on the "why would people buy a car when they could steal one for free" metaphor and ignores the most profitable denial of that claim: the bottled water industry. People do, indeed, buy things they can easily get for free--if the purchases are convenient and inexpensive enough.

Basic common sense would tell you that there's no way people will pay as much for distilled water as they will for a carbonated soda... but common sense is wrong.

Well, if common sense tells you that the poster is right, then common sense also tells you that bottled water is the exception that proves(tests) the rule-if the bottled water example is relevant at all.
The Cynical Musician ( who is also an economist) explains why pirates crowd out legit business :

Virtually the only disadvantage the pirates have is that they are operating illegally and even that isn’t a very apparent disadvantage. It becomes disadvantageous if there’s a serious risk of legal consequences to the pirate or if the shady nature of its operations puts off a sizeable portion of the consumer base. Right now, piracy doesn’t carry much of a social stigma and law-enforcement against it is rather ineffective.

The still-resounding mantra about how best to compete with pirates has been for the legitimate suppliers to come up with new, innovative business models, but the flaw in this line of argument should be perfectly visible from what you have just read – it assumes that the legitimate suppliers can somehow come up with a business model that would give them an advantage over the pirates.

I’m sorry to say it, but that is bunk. The best that the legitimate suppliers can come up with is to match the pirates’ offer some of the time – for the reasons outlined above. The pirates will always have lower costs and will always be exempt from some of the restrictions that the legitimate suppliers have. On the other hand, any business model, product or service that the legal suppliers can come up with can be matched and bettered by the pirates, for exactly the same reasons.

LINK

[QUOTE]There is something in the *culture* of the internet that makes them incompatible, and I don't just mean in the geeky hacker technophile corners of the web[/QUOTE ]

I understand the concept that the Internet was originally a sort of techie libertarian utopia where people worked on trust, not law, etc. Times have changed. The Internet has become a public square and a place of commerce. That means it has to become a place under the rule of law. There is no reason why it can't also be a place where free speech and privacy rights are protected. It does mean that you have to be a citizen and participate in the democratic process, if you are concerned.

notice he doesn't actually say *how* the internet can be regulated. He mentions traffic regulations on physical highways--but we know how those are done: police are assigned to drive around the area and pull over anyone they think looks dangerous, as defined by law. If there are too many dangerous people to pull over at once, police can take license plate numbers and go after them later. If the potentially-dangerous people think they were misidentified or weren't actually breaking the law, they can say so in court.

This is not a remotely accurate description of how police are supposed to work, but let that pass. The ranter doesn't need to set out a detailed general scheme of how to regulate the Internet. His ire is leveled at folks (like you) who seem perfectly OK with the massive violation of the rights of copyright holders but is overly concerned with the (so far imaginary) violation of the rights of those who are blatantly ripping off artists.
The Trichordist is calling simply for the law to be enforced. Just about everything you speculate about sounds like sophistical hypotheticals with no basis in reality. The reality is the mass violation of artist rights. Focus on what's really happening, not what MAY happen.