A semi-interesting article: Music Downloading - Now and in the Future offers somewhat of a simplistic remedy to the pirating of music on the Internet. They offer up that musicians should give their music away for free and find other revenue streams like increasing the monies they charge for concerts, participating in commercials, and I'm sure selling merchandise. This I'm afraid assumes every musician is of Elton John caliber and T-shirts can't be made on the black market.

What is the solution? Do we prosecute every downloader? If the music industry really wanted to solve this, why don't they come up with their own music format, sell their own players, and control the download process with SIM cards or electronic signature much like a mobile phone? Yea, not going to happen!

Let's hear you opinion as I'm sure there are some good ones to bat around.