> What about the possibility of the government requiring a license to use encryption technology? Maybe periodically reviewing licenseholders to ensure that they are using the technology appropriately?

Still seems unlikely. It's not really feasible, for one. It's pretty difficult to tell at-a-glance what traffic being passed across the Network is encrypted, and encryption technology is so firmly entrenched in modern applications that it would be *very* difficult to tell us we can't use it anymore (look at the loosening of American laws regulating the export of crypto over the past decade). Would it require a license for my operating system to store my password as a hash on my disk?

Furthermore, such a law would be obviously intrusive, and I really don't believe the public will stand for that. The first salvo of laws aimed at regulating copyright violations -- most notably our Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- has stuck around only because it doesn't have an obvious impact on most people. Start requiring licenses from the government to use your computer, and get ready to see such a law die quickly.

> My point is that there are a LOT of people who get paid to spend their time thinking of solutions to these sorts of problems, and we're probably not going to be able to guess every possible course of action they might take. I think it's safe to say that as with most other things in life, flagrant violations of the law with regard to copyright WILL lead to some sort of reduction in personal freedoms, even if we can't guess the nature of that reduction.

Unless it leads to a change in copyright law. My point originally was that you can't stop, at least through technological means, the trading of certain files over the Internet. Given the number of things the government would have to take control of to effectively police the 'Net, I don't see it being feasible in the near future, either.

I really think that people don't mind paying for their music/other IP, but that the big attraction to file swapping is that it is incredibly convienent. The industry has been trying to legislate the market and it has been failing. It will continue to fail.

Allow me to offer as an analogy the American experiment with the prohibition of alcohol. It did manage to cut down on a lot of drinking in certain areas, but those determined to drink managed to undermine the government. The entire thing quickly became unpopular and the law was reversed. It's simply not easy to take from people something that they really want. Things like the laws banning most narcotics stick around, I think, mainly because most illegal drugs have never been a major part of our society. Even so, there is a general (albeit slow) trend in the Westernized country toward loosening the punishments for drug use. I suspect this trend will continue.

Likewise, as more and more people see getting music off the 'Net as a normal thing, it will become increasingly difficult to stop it via legislation. The music industry will eventually just have to use a more sane distribution model.

Stephen