Free Culture II

In Lawrence Lessig's chapter on Piracy he says the courts rejected Napster technology capable of blocking 99.4% of copyright infringing material. From this he concludes that we are witnessing "a war on file-sharing technologies, not a war on copyright infringement. There is no way to assure that a p2p system is used 100 percent of the time in compliance with the law, any more than there is a way to assure that 100 percent of VCRs or 100 percent of Xerox machines or 100 percent of handguns are used in compliance with the law."
As I was considering this my thoughts reflected something Lessig had written earlier in the same chapter: "...the vast majority of it (type C sharing) is unavailable solely because the publisher or the distributor has decided it no longer makes economic sense to the company to make it available." P2P systems are exactly what do not make sense to the company. They are a potentially world-wide distribution system operated under the direction of an individual. Their existence began as outside the control of the corporate powers, and they offered the potential to do away with or substantially downsize an established system. Any competition, no matter how slight, is crushed according to sound business practice. The corporate giants are obviously looking to do just that to squash or control their competition. Despite many benefits of p2p, the record companies and others cannot allow it to flourish because it does not make sense to them. The way things currently are mean the p2p-users are helpless against the company will. The established powers have the capital and resources to take-on anyone they deem in violation of the law. Even if they lose it doesn't mean much to them; they are simply interested in profits and are willing to pursue anyone that may be cutting into them. I think it's fairly obvious this is not a war on copyright infringement but on p2p. The problem with this is an unfair fight; their is only one group who has any real ability to speak. The companies have everything at their disposal from lobbies to friendly media; the p2p world is a collection of individuals relatively silent on the level of communication the companies are capable of (they have great potential but that is all). If not watched, the corporations will eliminate or radically restrict a valuable technology not in public interest but their own. Dictating the development of technology and resources based on that alone is utter madness. Any thoughts on what's to be done about it?