10 years later...

Sinnreich's article on "Creating New Business Models with Digitial Rights Management" shows that copyright holders are quick to punish pirates but do little to find a solution to that piracy. He uses data and quantifiable evidence to prove that these rights holders would benefit from protective measures such as watermarks and encryption since, at the time, these holders had little success in shutting down sites or collecting damages. Furthermore, the rapid growth of digital media has provided pirates with greater ease and accessibility for infringement.
What I find interesting is that although Sinnreich's article was written in 1999, we still stand a lot to gain from reading it. This is because even though a decade is more like an eon in the online media world, the problems of today are essentially the same. We still witness a propensity for studios and labels to punish pirates retroactively through lawsuits and injunctions rather than find a prospective solution to the problem. I'll admit that the numbers in Sinnreich's article would be a bit different today--there is probably a greater amount of DRM protection from the copyright holders--yet the fundamental problem still remains. If pirates have grown more sophisticated in their methods of infringement, the solution should not be to impose punishments but to find an alternative method and new business model to confront these obstacles.