Hollywood uses copyright law to shut down pirate movie theaters. Apple uses copyright law to shut down unauthorized clones of its hardware products. Even Red Hat relies on copyright law to help it enforce the GPL license, which prohibits third parties from incorporating open source code into proprietary products. The fact that these businesses have chosen monetization strategies that don’t involve selling copies of content directly to the general public doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from copyright protection.Yet while these business models rely on copyright, they’re not particularly vulnerable to the scourge of online file sharing. I’m sure you could get a pirated copy of Apple’s iOS on the Internet, but it’s not going to do you much good without an iPhone to run it on. You can get a copy of the latest Hollywood blockbuster on BitTorrent, but the experience isn’t the same as seeing it on the big screen with your friends.
So copyright isn’t dying. All that’s happening is that a particular strategy for monetizing creative works is becoming less viable. That’s a shame, and it’s creating real dislocations for people who have built businesses around that strategy. But luckily there are lots of other companies around who don’t rely on it, and copyright is serving them just fine.