While Napster morphed from its lawless larval stage to a dues-paying music service, consumers have had their pick of surviving free, peer-to-peer applications. And while the music industry has been on the front lines of the battle to convert freeloaders into paying customers, their efforts have been watched closely by other digitized industries.

Stateline.org’s legislative review finds state budgets in such dire straits that they are closing prisons in Colorado and Kansas, raising taxes on the rich in New York and even taxing bourbon in Kentucky — and the worst is yet to come.