The biggest threat to the arts are not RIAA goons but the hordes of so-called fans that are jeopardizing and destroying the livelihoods of the very people they claim to love for their creatively.

The notion that "the arts" will be completely destroyed by the elimination of the government-granted and -enforced copyright monopoly is absurd. It's unfortunate that people won't be able to go on making money the same way they have been for the past 50 years. You know what? That's just too damn bad, because the alternative is far worse.

That is, ubiquitous government surveillance of every device hooked up to the internet. This is simply not possible, either technologically or practically: people will not put up with such an invasion of privacy just to protect the profits of some tiny market. In fact, I would die to prevent that. But thankfully this alternative is a straw man because the recording industry just isn't as important as you seem to assert: such a proposal will never get past Microsoft, much less become something the average Joe would need to worry about.

"The arts" will survive, albeit in a different form. People will make money in different ways. Life will go on.

But we've been over this territory before.

Kyle