So as we know, if a song reaches a certain level of popularity these days, there’s pretty much a guarantee that someone, somewhere is going to pirate it. This is now a fact. Should it happen? Some say yes, and some say no, and there will probably never be a consensus. Regardless of the answer to that question, the unrelenting truth of the matter is that it DOES happen. The smartest response in this case then is to stop arguing about the should’s or the why’s, and simply accept the fact that this is happening. The ground is shifting below our feet, and we need to act or we will all get sucked under.

To me it seems pointless to even bring up the prospect of a subscription service, or even a pay-as-you-go model as a viable solution for a future sustainable industry model. This is because the internet, now the basis of content consumption, is like a huge river of information. A paywall is like a little pebble being thrown into it. The water in the river has no trouble getting around the pebble. Paywalls will never solve the piracy problem, and damming up the whole river, as we’ve seen with SOPA, will not be easy, and most likely will never happen.