According to an article in today's Guardian, internet piracy could actually be helping the cinema and music industries to increase their profits. Cinema visits rose by almost 4% in 2007 with the industry earning £904.9 million. The music industry also experienced an increase in sales since Christmas. But isn't the music industry in crisis?

While the music industry is intent on prosecuting anonymous file sharing it seems that punters still want to go to the cinema and still want to buy music even though you can download just about everything.

The lack of foresight shown by the music industry has to be called into question. While there is much flag waving protecting the copyright of 'artists' in the end it's all about cashmoney. From that point of view the music industry has missed and keeps missing the capitalist boat.

The Guardian article states, "If the industry had spent more time devising a payments solution for the digital age instead of suing customers, it could have cleaned up. The younger generation supposedly nurtured in a culture of non-payment is the same one that pays £3.50 a shot for ringtones. Why? Phones had an easy payment system."

What's been the music industry's enlightened response? To call for ISPs to collect a music surcharge from broadband users to compensate copyright holders. Time to wake up and smell the coffee chaps.