American lawmakers have the right idea. Even if this piece of legislation, SOPA, is not the ideal approach, legislation is necessary. Internet piracy is a menace and the best way to combat it is through the justice of the law.

In practical terms, the viability of various industries has been undermined by Internet piracy. The sales of more accessible intellectual property, such as films, books, software, music, and games, is in what seems like an uncontrollable downward spiral.

The decline of the recording industry, for example, has led to many lost jobs and loss of revenue. Although their numbers should be treated sceptically (as they do not cite a source), the Recording Industry Association of America says music sales in the U.S. have plummeted 47 per cent in the decade since the creation of Napster, from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $7.7 billion in 2009.

Piracy has created opportunities for shared music and a platform for independent labels, but it has also made for fewer jobs at record companies and less compensation for artists (I’m thinking here of small acts, not U2).

Consider, closer to home, how many record stores in Toronto, including Sam the Record Man, have gone out of business. These closings have been due in large part to downloading, legal and illegal.

Opponents of legislation like SOPA will argue that these industries and their content producers should adapt their business models to Internet downloading, as if they are merely behind the curve. But that’s a strange suggestion. When an old lady has her purse stolen, society does not ask her to adapt, to get her act together so that it doesn’t happen again; it works through the law to make the robber criminally responsible. Somehow these corporations have become like the defenseless old woman, and similarly laws need to be enacted to protect them from lost revenue, lost jobs and lost compensation for artists.

Internet piracy does not have to be piracy, or illegal, which is perhaps the counter-argument. The ethics of piracy are messy. But at some point the balance between the consumer and the producer has fallen too far in the consumer’s favour, to the detriment of businesses and individuals.

Despite having endless power and resources, the great titans of commerce at the head of multi-billion dollar corporations have thrown up their arms in surrender against the great “series of tubes” that is the Internet. These tycoons find that marching lobbyists into US Congress in support of a fundamentally broken bill is easier than addressing the failures of their business models, which grow increasingly antiquated in our ever accelerating world. Their solution? Censorship in the form of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which aims to end piracy by ending the Internet as we know it.

What SOPA and other such bills represent is not a protection of intellectual property, but instead an admission of weakness, defeat, and failure. Rather than reinvigorating the intrepid entrepreneurial spirit with fresh opportunities and a renewed commitment to service and satisfaction, SOPA aims to cripple (or better yet, to crush) the emerging market trends with which it can no longer compete.

Ultimately, piracy is a problem of service. Why should the consumer be punished for preferring novel methods of acquisition, disingenuous though they may be? If what consumers value is a convenient transaction better provided by pirates than by traditional methods, shouldn’t the producers be criticized for failing to serve the customer? The pirates ought to be praised in being the “necessary evil,” delivering their product for them and exposing their flawed business models.

The downward spiral of the recording industry is an oft cited example of the menace of piracy, but did Apple not find success with iTunes in adjusting its proverbial sails to the changing winds? Is Netflix not finding success with streaming movies on demand? Is Steam not worth billions in the digital distribution of video games?

Piracy is the cancer insofar as SOPA is the cure. Instead of drafting counterintuitive and counterproductive legislation in a conceited effort to mask their inability or unwillingness to evolve with the times, supporters of SOPA should either embrace their obsolescence in a quiet, cushy retirement, or seriously reevaluate their business models and practices.

Centuries ago, navies didn’t seek to end piracy at sea by draining the oceans; it’s just as foolish to seek an end to online piracy by shutting down the Internet.