Yes. In a former life I was involved in another piracy issue that had to deal with satellite signals, and I think it is a significant problem. We're talking about a knowledge economy, so obviously you've got to protect your knowledge the way you protect ownership of real estate and property on that basis.
At the same time, intellectual property is always a question of balance, balance between the interests of the user and the creator and also the ability to innovate. So, yes, the issue of fair use we think should be addressed maybe in a second stage. One of the problems with copyright legislation in some other types of framework legislation is sometimes we try to tackle too many things at the same time and then we can't get anywhere, so we need to move on.
Obviously, our future has to be based on evolving in a marketplace on a basis that is satisfactory to the consumer. If the consumer doesn't like the restrictions being placed or can't use the product in a useful way, then we're shooting ourselves in the foot. And that can be addressed in two ways. It can be addressed in the law, but it can be addressed obviously in how the companies behave in the marketplace, and hopefully trial and error will have them find the things that work.
That's why I said earlier that if you don't protect the property going in, then you don't allow any of those models that are based on a consenting transaction between a seller and a buyer, which is the best way to build an economy and to give customers what they want.
As for the idea of a levy, we do not like the idea of a levy on iPods or on computer hard drives or on ISP access because they run contrary to everything that will make this economy grow. Everybody in the marketplace is groping with what will work in the marketplace, what will work with consumers. We know what technology can do. Sometimes it's much harder to know what exactly will work for consumers.
If you take the example of music, some will say I'll sell it for you for 99ยข a tune, I'll sell it for you for $10 a month all you can eat, or I'll try to sell you some stuff based on advertising.
In our industry, trying to predict what the successful business model will be is extremely hard for the best brains and experts in the world to do. For the government to, by default, choose the business model by saying we won't protect certain things.... And the worst thing would be to make it a levy.
Suppose you wanted the levy to cover all the music that's going to be bought on the Internet, all the videos that will be bought on the Internet, and, if you're not protecting rights, why not all the software that will be bought on the Internet? You might say we'll charge you, we'll tax you; we'll start at $5 a month and next thing we know we'll be at $50 a month, and $100 a month. And some people might consume nothing and others might consume a lot, and then somebody is going to determine the size the market is going to be every year, who's going to get what share and redistribute it.
It's a total nightmare. What you want is the market to find--and some will work with one solution, others will work with another--what do customers want to pay for? And then that's the best way to generate money, when it's willingly paid by the consumer, not a tax that then gets redistributed through some cloud.