[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Well, they should enjoy it while they can, because I don't expect it to last. If the days of rampant free music sharing don't come to an end soon, the music industry will (at least, in the pop genres favored by the music sharers). If the music industry wants to live, they'll find a way to monitor web traffic to identify songs passed on the web, and their senders and receivers (likely through ISP cooperation), and Jammie Thomas will have lots of friends. Or they will have to write off the pop genres as loss-leaders, and make their money from pop ad subsidization and more responsible audiences in other genres. I just don't see how the two worlds can co-exist as-is for long... something's gonna give.

E-books may see the same somethings give, but it's not exactly like the music industry, and what works for one may not work for the other. Still, I don't see why an ID and tracking system would not work for e-books (after all, it would allow e-books to be yours... it would just make sure they stayed yours and yours alone).

I also think ad subsidization would work to provide income, allowing some works to truly be free. (If you're not sure publishers would be willing to work at the ID and tracking system, you better believe advertisers would... it makes ad targeting easier.)

@Will: As much as I appreciate your sentiment, spend some time on this forum and it will become increasingly clear to you that online honesty isn't as widespread as we might like it to be...

Edit: That came out wrong... I didn't mean it to sound like the people on this forum are dishonest. But the opinions expressed do make it clear that there are a lot of dishonest people online in general.