Growth in the illegal marketplace is just minimal in comparison [to the legal marketplace]. And I think what that indicates is that our efforts have helped.
The Internet2 consortium is a unique and innovative test bed for us to explore technologies that will help us produce and distribute our content with an eye on protecting those creative works.
We will continue to send a strong message to the users of these illicit networks that their actions are illegal, they can be identified and the consequences are real.
As an industry, you can live with a low-grade fever, but you cannot live with a cancer -- and that's the level that we're currently at.
It's plain and simple. Where there has been evidence of music theft, there are consequences for illegal activity.
I guess I would respond by saying that in June, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the uploading and downloading of songs, in violation of copyright, is illegal. And, I think, against that backdrop, it's quite straightforward.
When you go online and illegally download music, there is no difference between that and walking into a local record store, convenience store, and shoplifting a CD.
Theft is theft. When you log onto an illegal service and download music for free without compensation to the artists, the songwriters, the publishers, the musicians -- all those thousands of individuals whose hard work and great talent has gone into making that music possible -- there is no difference between that and walking into a Wal-Mart and shoplifting a CD.
It's not our goal to wipe out piracy entirely. It is our goal to bring it to a level of manageable control -- just as our industry has lived with physical piracy on the street for a number of years.
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