(Feb. 9, 2012) — It’s difficult to inspire people to take action, speak up or even care about all the atrocities and tragedies that go on right under our noses. Mass murders of citizens in Syria by a blood-thirsty dictator? Not our problem. Millions of people starving in Africa? Boring. Earthquakes, tsunamis and other such natural disasters ravaging parts of the third world? Forgettable. But nothing can fill the inboxes and light up the phones of Congress quite like a threat to our precious Internet. Recently, the American government has posed a threat to our most prized and cherished privilege: our ability to get anything and everything we want, whenever we want it. The shutdown of Megaupload and legislation like SOPA and PIPA shake the Internet to its very core because they threaten our comfort and way of life. Teenagers grow up in a world where a wealth of information is available through the Internet, thousand of apps can be downloaded for next to nothing on our smartphones, and everything we want can be acquired digitally. Most people can’t imagine a time where listening to a newly leaked album or watching an overseas TV show the day it airs was more than a few clicks away. But the hackneyed idea that pirates are devious hackers out to destroy the profits of record labels and production companies simply isn’t true anymore. These coach-potato pirates aren’t necessarily consciously breaking the law. They’re just a part of a generation of people who grew up with the Internet and aren’t used to paying or waiting for the things they want. Obviously, this entitled attitude isn’t ideal, but no amount of government regulation or threats of jail time and fines is going to change it. In fact, it’s difficult for anyone to take those threats seriously, when there’s no possible way the government could punish every single person who pirates music or movies illegally. Television and movie studios and the government are not helping the situation by angering hoards of tech-savvy, media-addicted consumers. Shutting down streaming and file-sharing websites will only inspire pirates to find newer, cleverer ways to get their fix; Internet regulation laws will only inspire protests against supposed censorship and tyranny. Services like Hulu and Spotify prove that if you provide instant streaming services with occasional, non-obtrusive advertisements, people will come. Virtually anyone can market their music and gain fans through Soundcloud or Bandcamp, without the help of a record label. The music, television and movie industries should adapt to the realities of our brave new world and change their approach to piracy if they want to survive. Extreme bills like SOPA will only inspire animosity in the people that the entertainment industry aims to cater to.