How to Waste your Time, the Intellectual "Property" Way

So the CBC has a story about the US government taking China to WTO arbitration over "piracy". (Please insert here the pro-forma rant about how piracy--the real thing, not copyright infringement--is a heinous crime in which people die whereas nobody has ever died from copied DVDs and CDs. I'm tired of typing it out again and again. Why don't you idiots at the RIAA and MPAA just call it "The Entertainment Holocaust" if you're so intent on grotesquely distorting words and concepts for rhetorical gain?)

Of particular interest in that article is this passage:

American companies contend they are losing billions of dollars in sales because of rampant copyright piracy.

Which planet are these people living on? The Chinese, for the most part, can barely afford movies at the infringed copyright rates (ranging CDN$0.25-$1.50 depending on quality)! What on Earth makes these morons think that jacking up the price to $10+ is going to have any impact on their income?

I think it's time for someone to kidnap copyright lawyers and entertainment company executives and force them, at gunpoint, to live in the countryside of China for a year without access to their millions. Then, maybe, they'll just grab a clue and figure out that their fight is self-defeating.