A good starting point is education. The RIAA claims that it "works with" universities and corporations to educate them about the evils of piracy. In reality, the campaign has amounted to little more than a series of threatening letters. On Nov. 21, the U.S. Naval Academy acted on the industry's request to crack down on illegal music trading when it seized almost 100 computers from students suspected of downloading unauthorized songs from the Internet. If the midshipmen are found guilty, they face possible loss of leave, court martial, or even expulsion. The incident provoked a wave of protest -- and disgust -- in the technology and university communities.

A better way would be to spend time and money educating younger children on the concept and importance of copyright. One program already under way is a fifth-grade curriculum, developed in conjunction with Scholastic Inc., that has been introduced at 10,000 schools across the country, a part of the whole generation of teens whose first stop for music is the Internet, not the local music store.