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I think that copyright holders may have been unintentionally crying wolf in the past. That being said, I think the current debate about how illegal downloading is damaging the rights of copyright holders is a legitimate one. All the previous technologies were limited, if not in the fidelity of the copy, then certainly in the ability to share. Most people simply were not going to go through the time and effort to make 50 or 100 copies of a TV show they taped.
We are now in a world where flawless copies can be made and shared with extremely little effort on behalf of the file sharer. Yes, there is still a lot of poor pirated copies out there, but increasingly, the copies, particularly for music and books, are high quality copies. Ultimately, these copies will threaten to remove an important incentive for the production and distribution of creative works. Not that we can stop it; we ultimately need to find a new way to compensate artists for their work -- especially when that work becomes popular.
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Bill
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