Also, lax copyright laws, laissez-faire law enforcement and LOTS of bandwidth. Anyone? "What is Stockholm?" Correct!

Once upon a time, the Cartel made a big noise and destroyed Napster (1.0). I pointed out then that people shared music before Napster and would do so long after it shut down. Points to me for stating the obvious. Now Andy Greenberg is trying to state the same obvious truth in respect to the sharing of movies and other digital media.

His story for Forbes highlights the boasts of BitTorrent repository ThePirateBay.org, which trumpets the many benefits of being hosted in a non-US location. Here in the US the Cartel may have its armies of lawyers and Congressional sock puppets. Over there, they get mocked.

Greenberg's point is what I've called "smashing mercury with a hammer" - the Cartel can swing a big hammer and make a dramatic flash when it lands a blow but the end result isn't an end to sharing. It's just a scattering of the same material around to new locations. The Cartel can sue YouTube/Google until its lawyers retire fat and happy but that won't matter one iota to all the YouTube clones that are popping up faster than any one case can progress through a court system.

This arms race was lost nearly ten years ago, but the Cartel soldiers on pouring money into lawsuits and technology that three high school kids can defeat as a summer project. Imagine if they'd put those resources into building new business models and winning customer loyalty instead. Anyone? "What is drwex's fantasy outcome of the Copyright Wars?" Correct.