Janet Sassi from Fordham University has an excellent write-up of a talk by Dr. Edward Epstein, a former professor at MIT and current columnist at Slate Magazine. Epstein recently released The Big Picture (Random House, 2005), a book in which he traces the diminishing value to entertainment labels of movie theaters and movie set “analog productions.” Epstein predicts that the entertainment industry will increasingly leverage cheaper production mechanisms and digital modes of distribution, that make enforcing intelletual property ever more important.

Epstein said that the piracy of intellectual property is the biggest issue facing Hollywood studios in the coming decade.

In order to fully control piracy with so many distribution routes (theatres, DVD, pay-per-view and video-on-demand), [Epstein] said, studios must work with governments and the MPAA to create the concept that piracy is theft.

“You can create social behavior if you create sanctions against [theft],” he said. “If the Chinese government said that you’d get 10 years in prison for [bootlegs], all the video shops in Shanghai would close.”

Right on. Piracy is theft, its not merely sharing, its not moral and is hardly something to build a "free culture" on.