“Even after the death of Clipper and the launch of PGP, users didn’t want to encrypt their communications. The most effective barrier to the spread of encryption has turned out to be not control but apathy.

..the RIAA is succeeding where 10 years of hectoring by the Cypherpunks failed. In response to the RIAA’s lawsuits, users who want to share music files are adopting tools that allow them to create encrypted spaces. This broadening adoption of encryption is not because users have become libertarians, but because they have become criminals..

The obvious parallel here is with Prohibition [which] created a cat and mouse game between law enforcement and millions of citizens engaged in an activity that was illegal but popular. This created several long-term effects in American society: greatly increased skepticism of Government-mandated morality, and broad support for anyone who could arrange for hidden transactions, including organized crime. Reversing the cause did not reverse the effects; both the heightened skepticism and the increased power of organized crime lasted decades after Prohibition itself was reversed.

As with Prohibition, so with file sharing.. the effects of the increased use of encryption, and the subsequent difficulties for law enforcement in decrypting messages and files, will last far longer than the current transition to digital music delivery, and may in fact be the most important legacy of the current legal crackdown [on piracy].