The Business Software Alliance and ifpi, a London-based organization representing the international recording industry, are separately looking at ways of taking legal action against users of distributed systems like Gnutella and Freenet. People belonging to systems like Gnutella, in which they illegally post files to other users, are opening themselves to legal action. Last year ifpi found pirated music files on servers in 50 countries. Clarke says the music industry better get used to online piracy and develop new business models. Or perhaps musicians will only be able to cut an album after online fans raise a certain amount of money.
Content providers disagree of course.
As far as they are concerned, Clarke is making the battle more difficult but the war is not over yet. But it's showing up outside clubs too, and advocates claim it even has therapeutic benefits. It's more than just ecstasy.