Just boycott the movies and music for a good few months, and I guarantee they will finally make things affordable so you don't have to download it from P2P's. Ultimately though, it is out of hand. People just grabbing whatever they want. It does cost money to make albums and movies. As a musician, I have no incentive to even bother releasing an album. It will just end up as a torrent.
but if people care about your music, they will buy it. They will support what they care about. The problem goes back to the 90s when the undustry would charge whatever they wanted b/c to get a "good digital copy" of a song, you had to pay $15. It's not the artists faults either, it's the labels. They don't even give them the choice of what's on the album. They will spread out "Hit" songs over a few albums to sell more copies even if they're available to put on the current album, and instead leave you with 12 crappy songs and 1 good one.
You have to remember, they are only losing money when someone who would buy it, pirates it. So for people who wouldn't buy the album/movie but would pirate it, it gets the artists free exposure. That in turn creates fans, which will sell tickets, and sell more albums.
"Lord Mandelson is also going after websites that offer storage, forcing them to make all files public."
Good luck with that!!! Every major software company is trying to convince people to switch to the cloud if this goes forward it's bye bye to the cloud!!!