So, is this article interesting because it comes from The Economist? I think most of us here have been reading copyright law analysis and critique that's far beyond this since before the DMCA was passed.
That's how changes to the world normally occur: not through a revolutionary minority, but through the development of a consensus which serves as a suitable powder keg. Look at British and French SF from the twenty years before WWI, for example.
What's the basis for that belief?
Surely it's not "biz survived" because biz can survive things that are bad for them.
Also, the flourishing of other biz doesn't imply that some biz wasn't hurt.
For example, criminalization of morphine (early last century in the US) hurt legal drug retailers.