[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Animal: Can't say as a saw that, Rataxes. If the recording artist decides not to copyright their music, then by all means...download away. But downloading copyrighted music (or movies/software) is no better than walking into your local music store, shoving a CD into your pocket and walking out without paying for it. It's called stealing, not sharing. If the music industry heads towards free and unrestricted music sharing, then that's great. I'll still buy the music, that's just how I feel. However, at this time, I don't believe that's the case, so all of you who partake in such activities should be ashamed of yourselves.

This is true, but you forget one thing: Bittorrent can be controlled more easily than Kazaa or iMesh. The packages available on it rely on different servers... if, like the recording labels are doing here, you shut down only the ones with illegal files, what happens? The illegal sharing on BitTorrent is stopped, and BitTorrent servers operating on legitimate files only can stay. Win-Win, except for the thieves - but we don't care for them anyway. Shutting down all filesharing on Bittorrent would have adverse effects on, for example, the open-source software communities.
With iMesh and Kazaa, yes, the only way to stop the illegal is to stop the legal aswell, and shut down the entire kit and caboodle. And this is going to start happening very soon: record labels are suing Sharman networks in every country they can, for everything they can.
BitTorrent's design will not be its downfall. Kazaa's will not be its lifeline. Kazaa will die. But, as someone on Mozillazine said, so long as there are Linux distributions with limited bandwidth on their servers, Bittorrent will survive.