Canada has(had?) a similar with recordable media like blank cassette tapes where a premium was attached to the sticker price (sort of a hidden tax) that was then distributed to the music companies. As a result here it is perfectly legal to copy your friend's music cds and the like. However I am not sure that the law has kept up, as I am not aware of any premiums on mp3 players, or devices that hold data (hard drives, usb keys etc).
Anyhow I am not overly convinced that piracy of anything = lost sales most of the time (definitely not the absurd 1-1 ratio the industrys likes to tout). For one thing, pirates pirate way more then they could ever possibly afford. Some pirates do the try before you buy thing, or buy what they liked best. Also in the article I think they are right, people have far less disposable income now, what with all the crap everyone thinks they need (Iphones, Ipods, multiple computers, plasma TVs, console systems, etc). So its not surprising that sales for music (and games) would be down. Plus the added cost of all this DRM which in the end does almost nothing to stop or slow down rates of piracy.
The industries would be better off focusing on areas that are difficult to pirate, like live music venues, and for games online/bonus content.
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