I think we should perhaps stop bothering reporting these numbers, it's all guess work with no real data.

It's not possible to prove that they will earn 95% more if there was no "downloads". It's not even possible to prove that the 95% number is true.

And any counter claim is also based on pure guesswork with no real way to prove it.

All I can do is wonder how much of those 95% illegal "downloads" can be considered advertisement that generate sales? In other words, if we remove all stuff they consider illegal, would it kill the recoding industry due to reduced sales?

While this is a tried and afaik somewhat true argument, it doesn't really invalidate the other side of the coin.

Games making kids violent, people getting addicted to games or gambling, someone joining a cult and other things that a major part of the human race isn't effected negatively by.

Some people break because of these things and the government has a hard time dealing with it, resulting in them having to use things like outright bans for everyone.

If you want a better world without the government having to make stupid bans, you have to make it better, you have to be there to help the guy with the alcohol problem, drug problem, gambling problem...

If you help the guy next door, then your solving the problem, so governments wont have to, because sometimes giving a shit matters.

I had one Gentoo Server with a 2.6.24 kernel I can't explain why it went network dead, after it was rebooted I could check the logs and see the machine had continued to work, it just didn't talk with anyone.