My apologies folks, but I have seen the coming of the end times. The world is about to end, The Rapture is upon us and Armageddon just around the corner. You may think this a trifle of an over reaction to a simple article which spells out the economic facts of life:

To start with the good
bit of his argument, it is true – as Gates says – that intellectual
property matters and copyright benefits the whole of society, and needs
to be enforced. The market is a very efficient way of producing good
software, and if it is to work then the rules must be enforced, and
copyrighted software protected not just by law, but by active policing.
Copying without permission seems a victimless crime; but in the long
run it is a crime of which we are all victims.
This
is not just an argument in fairness that says that the author of a work
deserves the reward of his or her labours. There is the argument from
efficiency, and social benefit. Copyright makes possible a proper
market in intangible goods, which means more of them will be produced,
which means we all will benefit.
Markets
aren’t the only system by which software gets produced. Plenty of books
were produced for love, or without the hope of gain. Shakespeare could
hardly have written more if he had been rolling in royalties. Even
today, a great deal of the most important software in the world is
freely produced and freely given away. Every time you connect to the
internet, or look something up on Google, you are relying on software
at the other end of the connection which, like Linux, is free for
anyone to copy or use.

Surely, something like this does not mean that we should all be climbing up onto the roof with a bottle of whisky to see the light show? Well, actually, yes, for it is such an anomaly, such a violation of the natural order of things that it can only be a sign of the coming end of the world. For The Guardian has published an article which gets its economics right.