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"The movie industry is following the path paved by the music business, filing hundreds of lawsuits against consumers who enjoy their products so much that they want to share them with friends. Instead of adapting to the new rules of the road, these companies wield a legal sledgehammer to bash their best potential customers. (Interestingly, book publishers don't sue public libraries. They learned long ago that their challenge was to make the paid product more attractive and convenient than the free one.)

'Suing your customers is not a winning business strategy,' writes G. Richard Shell, a legal studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school. He notes that a century ago, when Henry Ford started selling cheap cars off his revolutionary assembly line, the country's leading carmakers responded by suing hundreds of customers who bought the Ford product. The suits claimed that buying a Ford violated a patent that the other automakers had on internal combustion engines.

For eight years, the big companies sued Ford and his customers. By the end of the war, Ford had won in court and, far more important, in the hearts and wallets of the public. Ford became the country's top carmaker."

What is going on such that industries are so risk averse as to refuse to allow innovation? Most technological innovations tend to increase the market for content.