A study by Entertainment Media Research claims that 72% of file sharers
would stop file sharing, if sent a letter by their ISP threatening to cut them off the internet. This, obvious, supports the
entertainment industry's effort over the past couple of years to get ISPs to act as their
enforcers. It also ignores the fact that the EU has rejected such three strikes policies as a violation of users' rights. If someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to do something, plenty of people will probably do it, but that doesn't mean that it's right. Furthermore, what the study is really asking is, which of these two scenarios is preferable: no file sharing or no internet (which, by definition would mean no file sharing). Guess which people are going to say?

Unfortunately, results like this just mean that the industry will probably keep up its
campaign to push for ISP enforcement, rather than actually coming up with better business
models that embrace file sharing as promotion and a natural part of the market. They'll
claim, of course, that this shows such an "educational campaign" will be effective -- ignoring the implicit "gun-to-head" part.
However, as we recently discussed, there's little to indicate that the educational campaign has actually succeeded at all over the past decade, and there's little to believe
that letters from ISPs will really be particularly effective in the long run. In a survey, of course people will say that they'll stop the activity to avoid getting cut off the internet. But that won't be because they think it's right or are comfortable with it. So the second a new, more secure or more underground method of file sharing comes along, they'll jump on that as well. If the entertainment industry wants to keep pursuing three strikes rules by promoting delusional studies like this one, that's it's choice, but it won't get the industry any closer to solving its business model problems.

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