I agree that the tension between what is cheapest/highest quality and what is ethical/legal is important to consider. I thought Ashwin's description of how he started working with the media companies was especially interesting in this regard. He recalled telling the media executives that, through his technology, tons of people were stealing media (even just in the time of their meeting). From there, he proposed to work out a deal that would help both parties harness the profit-potential of a pre-existing process. There is a certain cyclical nature of this, in the sense that Ashwin produced BitTorrent, which enabled people to rip off the media companies, which then allowed Ashwin to go back to the media companies and say, "let's make a deal to solve your problem." Ethics and legality plays into this in an interesting way, raising several questions, including if it's ethical to profit from a piracy-based market that you yourself created.

Litigation has not "eliminated" crime either but crime still exists in fact controlling crime and piracy is the goal of litigation.

Perhaps an important thing to ask is how to make knowledge and content available for the poor and underprivileged.

As a note to the last post, I believe the US government firmly believes that making something illegal should help to eliminate that something.  Statistics may prove otherwise, and perhaps the most notable example I can think of is with the War on Drugs.  However, having spoken and heard a lecture from a DEA representative in a class called Drugs, Crime and Society at another University, his official position was still that having drugs illegal was going to reduce and eventually eliminate use - despite that the statics proved otherwise.  I bring this up becuase any law is put into practice by imposing consequences if one breaks that law.  For drugs this is criminal, as is pirating music.  The law is put into place so people will not break it, and consequences are such to act as a deterrent.

Obviously with our overcrowded prisons, socioeconomically unequal justice system, and many "criminals" walking around completely free, there is no eliminating of the illegal activity, and sometimes it is argued that there is not even a reduction in illegal activity.  But our own government makes decisions everyday based on this ideal - so I believe the speaker made a valid argument.  In fact, your  comment gives me hope that future generations will look at crime and society a little differently than our past generations did.  Maybe many things that are simply illegal, should also or instead be attached through a different means, as he is trying to do with pirated music.