Classical pianist Krystian Zimerman has had enough with people and their smart phones.  He stormed off the concert stage in the latest incident pitting artists against technology.

Zimerman was performing at the Ruhr Piano Festival in Essen, Germany, when he spotted someone in the balcony recording the concert on a smart phone. He asked them to stop, but they didn't. So he interrupted the recital and walked off stage.

Zimerman later explained to the audience that smart phones are bad for business, and that he lost recording contracts because record executives tell him his proposals have already been on YouTube.

Festival director Franz Xaver Ohnesorg sympathized with Zimerman, saying, “What happened is theft, pure and simple.”

Zimerman joins popular musicians the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Roger Waters in asking fans to please just knock it off with the smart phones.

And we sympathize.  But the history of music versus technology suggests that technology always wins.

This whole thing started in the 1970s and ‘80s, when the music industry noticed that people were recording music at home from albums to compact cassettes.  The record companies launched a campaign called “Home Taping is Killing Music” which was often undermined by their own artists.  Compact cassettes were followed by VHS, CD, and DVD.  And who can forget Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich’s epic fight with and ultimate surrender to File Sharing websites.