re: 'All this online sharing has to stop'

• The IFPI - the International Federation of Phonographic Industries - is the global music industry organisation
• On Thursday it published its digital music report 2008. It said that "the spread of unlicensed music on ISP networks is choking revenues to record companies and investment in artists, despite a healthy increase in digital sales in 2007, up approximately 40% on the previous year".
• They suggested to sort it out by disconnecting infringers and the use of filtering technologies. They believe that this is the most effective way copyright theft can be controlled
• People copy and paste entire articles from online newspapers to blog sites or to their own computer and they don't pay a thing. Then they read them or "share" them with other people who they might not even have met.
• This is choking our investment in new journalism.
• In the past 10 years, hundreds - probably thousands - of journalists have been thrown out of jobs as newspapers and magazines have downsized.
• Pornography; there used to be tons of top-shelf magazines e.g playboy, escort, men only, back-door sluts 9, all earning a comfortable living.Then the internet came along and at a stroke destroyed their business model.
• Now there are loads of internet sites where you can get free amateur pornography - exactly the same sort of stuff that people used to pay for.
• British band Radiohead have bridged a revolutionary gap in releasing their latest (2007) album 'in rainbows' (which is a great album) in that they sold it not in the shops, but on their website available to download for with a voluntry donation. The average price was interestingly $2, which paints a picture on the price people place on the true value of music...