[schnitzel]

illegal downloading is seen by most people as either totally wrong or totally OK. Both of these 'extreme views' are dangerous and need to be questioned. To take the Music industry as an example. Before the advent of the recording industry and for a short period prior to that Sheet Music. Artists earned their keep with 'live' performance. As such they were mostly paid in accordance with their ability at the same time their total earnings were never more than their value to society as a whole.

With the advent of Sheet Music a whole new mass market industry started which led eventually to the recording industry. by the end of the 1990's we had a situation where it became possible for someone, whether they had talent or not, to earn millions of $$'s in a matter of minutes.

Now no one can tell me that is right or moral, How can someone who's only contribution to society is to gyrate around on TV in little or no clothing be of more value than say a Heart Surgeon?

At the other extreme there are talented performers who simply because they lack the ability to 'sell' themselves who struggle to earn a living.

What is happening now with the development of the net is, in my opinion a long overdue shake up of a media industry which had become greedy. With luck a more balanced way of selling music / books and the work of other artists will emerge where we no longer have idiots who have managed by just being obnoxious on Xfactor to be apparently of more value than my local dentist or even the man who unblocked my drains last week!

I don't pretend to know what the answer is, or how it will end. But I'm sure illegal downloading is a long overdue catalyst that will eventually be seen as necessary stage in the evolution of the entertainment industry.

In the meantime we cant, non of us, afford to let the media moguls win because if they do we will return to a form of censorship unseen since the middle ages in Europe when the Church decided what people could or could not read / sing / believe