Wednesday, March 30, 2005
MGM v. Grokster: Mindshare
Anonymous nails it right on the head:
But the current large commercial music interests are not likely to be served by a change to an industry they have optimized for their profit.
Although the issue being discussed in the courts is copyright, what's not being said is that peer-to-peer technologies offer alternative media that is not owned by the oligopoly of content owners. Obviously, owners want to protect their bottom line and whats at stake has more to do with their dominance of the distribution network and their fear of competition than copyright protection.
What makes Bram Cohen's BitTorrent such a genius technology is not that it can be used to infringe copyright but that it has so successfully allowed producers of independent content to reach a large audience. That is a major understated engineering breakthrough and is curiously never mentioned by big media. They are scared to death of competition, not copyright infringement.
But the current large commercial music interests are not likely to be served by a change to an industry they have optimized for their profit.
Although the issue being discussed in the courts is copyright, what's not being said is that peer-to-peer technologies offer alternative media that is not owned by the oligopoly of content owners. Obviously, owners want to protect their bottom line and whats at stake has more to do with their dominance of the distribution network and their fear of competition than copyright protection.
What makes Bram Cohen's BitTorrent such a genius technology is not that it can be used to infringe copyright but that it has so successfully allowed producers of independent content to reach a large audience. That is a major understated engineering breakthrough and is curiously never mentioned by big media. They are scared to death of competition, not copyright infringement.
# posted by herestomwiththeweather @ 3/30/2005 08:35:00 AM 
