"Public opinion settled in the other direction."<p>And we all know public opinion is never wrong.<p>It's really easy to share copyrighted files. It's easier, in fact, than downloading them. Both are so easy people overconsume. They download more music than they will ever hear - music they would never buy if they had to incur the cost.<p>More interestingly, how do plaintifs prove the sharer allowed the copy of the whole file? It's easy to imagine any downloader got the files from a number of different sources, each effectively sharing a tiny part of the file.<p>Thinking about it... Couldn't the protocols not advertise the parts of the file the sharer has, but, instead, receive a list of wanted parts from the downloader and respond with some, but perhaps not every, part of the file? What would happen to these lawsuits if nobody ever shared the whole file with anyone?