I really doubt piracy will ever be cracked down upon enough to seriously put a dent in it. It happens so frequently...and has become so disgustingly widespread...that I just don't see how any type of organization is going to be able to put a lid on this. There would have to be so much money invested in projects/operations like this that it would be sickening just thinking about it. In the US for instance, serious changes would be necessary on our constituional rights. I don't see how that will fly any time soon.
Even without downloading over the Internet...how are you going to stop people from buying a product, and then sharing them with friends and making tons of illegal copies? The CD/DVD writing technology today has simplified it. It's just like back in the good old days before everyone was online. People made copies of casettes...recorded videos with their VCRs...and so on. I know that not much can be done about this, and you can never totally quench piracy, but it doesn't have to be as friggin rampant as it is today.
As I've already stated, the sad part is how easy it has become. Piracy of media has become easier than ever, since computer technology and the Internet have hit the mainstream. You could go as far as saying piracy is the cool thing to do. Downloading copyrighted music, for instance, is something many people will do as willingly as they'll drive over the speed limit. You can thank p2p for that. In fact, I think peer to peer file sharing is one of the most harmful developments ever. It has done f*ckloads more bad than good if you look at the 95% of the shit you'll find floating around on there. It's completely unregulated, and no one seems to give a damn that you have terrabytes of pirated media at your disposal.
All of this is growing exponentially. People are realizing that if they can get music for free with few strings attached, they can probably get movies and DVDs for free...and hell, why not get games and software while they're at it? It's all right there at the same place where they found their songs. Many get hooked on the stealing and figure, "Why waste my money on buying all that, when I can get it for free and use my money elsewhere?"
I do commend the RIAA (over here) for the efforts they have taken to combat music piracy...though they have had very modest success. If more organizations and government officials started getting involved and invested the time and energy to start addressing this, I'm sure they could make a few things happen. The p2p servers seriously need regulation. No one takes this crap seriously enough though. Like I said...right now people compare it to committing minor traffic violations.
And yes..I know that as widespread as piracy is, it still hasn't had an incredible affect on sales. Of course, there are so many more important issues in the world then the theft of music, movies, software, games, and so on...that I can understand why it's deemed so petty at this point that no one gives a damn. But I'm telling you that it's only a matter of time before it becomes noticeable. As moral as people may be, they like to get things for free. It's just becoming more and more common as the years pass.
I've got younger cousins still in high school/starting college for instance who have bragged at family reunions about gigabytes upon gigabytes of stolen music, dvds, and movies lying on their hard drives. They could give a shit about the moral implications of what they're doing. What can you really do at this point though, when your own friends and relatives seem to be advocating piracy?
I cannot wait to see where things will be a decade from now.
