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John,

You are tapping into the great stupidity that is the entertainment industry (and many other content providers). They become so intently focused on protecting their property (movies, books, whatever) and their fat profit margins at all costs that they absolutely lose the ability to rationally look at new technology.

The record industry fought the compact disc format for years before it came out only to make tons of money (they never would have made otherwise) from the new format. Now, they are fighting the electronic distribution of music in the same way.

The movie industry fought the VCR for years. Now, I believe thay they make more money from videocassette rentals than they do from movie theater releases, all the while movie theater revenue has continued to climb as well.

You'd think these idiots would learn at one point or another that they should embrace new technologies before the rest of the world beats them to it. Napster probably never would have happened if the record companies had developed a *user friendly* version of electronic music downloads (as opposed to the restrictive pieces of sh*t they are trying to force down consumers' throats now). As your post illustrates, most people would rather pay a fair and reasonable price for something than have to jump through hoops trying to get it for free. Yes, there will be some profit "leakage," but history has shown that new technologies create new profit opportunitites that more than make up for such lost revenues.

Stepping off of the soapbox.