But these acronym rich, highly complex legal conflicts might prove to be irrelevant. Beyond the moral and legal struggle between Internet pirates and traditional content producers, the battle over paid online content – both inside and outside Sweden – has already been lost. Consumers simply aren’t paying for Internet music, movies or newspapers. For better or worse, the old paid model no longer really works. The majority of online consumers believe that all content should be free. And if they can’t access this free content legally, then they will either steal or ignore it.

Not that the old regime is going down without a fight. Last week, Rupert Murdoch, a 20th century Viking now turned 21st century victim, announced his intention to establish a paid “walled garden” around flagship News Corps newspapers such as the Sun, the London Times and the Wall Street Journal. While I defended Murdoch for this ballsy move, most media pundits laughed at the 79 year-old mogul, accusing him of being anachronistically out of touch with the contemporary “consumer” in today’s increasingly free Internet economy.

via Pirate Bay leads Swedish Viking charge on paid content – Telegraph.

At a certain moment in the not too distant future, consumers will finally have to acknowledge their own guilt in the destruction of our paid culture. We have to collectively recognise that it’s not file-sharing sites like Pirate Bay or radical new political parties like the Pirate Party which are killing the music, newspaper and movie industries. Instead, we are collectively killing our own culture by refusing to pay for it online. Each new Spotify or Pirate Bay is, therefore, one more nail in the coffin of the traditional media business.

Here’s a review and all the information on J. Hamilton’s “All the News That’s Fit to Sell” book