Kids Today - The People Tomorrow

Nice story here:

I just could not find a spot on the spectrum that would trigger these kids' morality alarm. They listened to each example, looking at me like I was nuts.

Finally, with mock exasperation, I said, "O.K., let's try one that's a little less complicated: You want a movie or an album. You don't want to pay for it. So you download it."

There it was: the bald-faced, worst-case example, without any nuance or mitigating factors whatsoever.

"Who thinks that might be wrong?"

Two hands out of 500.

Now, maybe there was some peer pressure involved; nobody wants to look like a goody-goody.

Maybe all this is obvious to you, and maybe you could have predicted it. But to see this vivid demonstration of the generational divide, in person, blew me away.

I don't pretend to know what the solution to the file-sharing issue is. (Although I'm increasingly convinced that copy protection isn't it.)

Er, David, it's called changing the business model. It is just not sustainable to try to enforce analogue-type laws on digital content, and ultimately it's counterproductive - as the music industry is finding to its cost.