I find it odd that you would think piracy was popularized 10 years ago. First off, commercially pirated publication has been popular ever since publication was invented. Pirate editions of books have been widely available for hundreds of years.
Individual copying of music has been popular since home taping became available from the early 60's on. My friends and I had lots of home recorded compact cassettes in the 80s. The youth of that day felt perfectly entitled to tape whatever they wanted. The coming of CD's meant that the first generation tape was perfect with no additional hiss.
Digital copying became popular as soon as home CD-R came along. I remember being amazed when $1.50 blank CD-Rs and $500 burners came along in the mid 90s. I soon had a pile of bit for bit perfect copies. No generational loss, nothing missing but the cover art.
Even if the internet or peer-to-peer had never come into use, there would today be a huge casual piracy scene based on MP3s, FLACs, portable hard drives and burned discs. If the publishing industry somehow manages to stuff the P2P genie back in the bottle, that's where we'll end up.
Individual copying of music has been popular since home taping became available from the early 60's on. My friends and I had lots of home recorded compact cassettes in the 80s. The youth of that day felt perfectly entitled to tape whatever they wanted. The coming of CD's meant that the first generation tape was perfect with no additional hiss.
Digital copying became popular as soon as home CD-R came along. I remember being amazed when $1.50 blank CD-Rs and $500 burners came along in the mid 90s. I soon had a pile of bit for bit perfect copies. No generational loss, nothing missing but the cover art.
Even if the internet or peer-to-peer had never come into use, there would today be a huge casual piracy scene based on MP3s, FLACs, portable hard drives and burned discs. If the publishing industry somehow manages to stuff the P2P genie back in the bottle, that's where we'll end up.