Is online piracy a really serious problem? My opinion: nope.

[gulliver]

116. It's a serious problem if you are the one whose IP is being stolen.

I think we want people to be able to make a good living producing the music, movies, and software we like. Stealing from them is wrong. But I don't think a draconian solution like SOPA/PIPA is the answer. It's a really bad idea. I think one answer is to persuade the people on the ethical merits.

For example, Obama could try to make the case in a speech...very, very delicately while ruling out SOPA/PIPA overreactions. I think if our leaders (government and otherwise) just appealed to people's natural ethics and pride, a big drop in IP theft would result.

The other side of the coin is to make examples of people who engage in this form of petty theft. You're probably not going to get caught, but if you do, major nightmare.

Those two together would help bring the problem under control, imo. I think if you try to be purely adversarial, then people take pleasure in stealing from you.