‘A train that can’t be stopped’
P2p file sharing, "has gotten a black eye from illegal downloads of copyrighted music and movies, but the technology behind it is important," a Forbes story states, more than a little belatedly.
Important? No. Absolutely essential? Yes.
"Somewhere in the middle of cyberspace, the kids and the grown-ups have to lay down some ground rules," says Aliya Sternstein in Fighting For The Right To Share . "Even the U.S. Constitution was a compromise."
Her story kicks off, "Ian Clarke,"inventor of file-swapping service Freenet, has departed the United States for the United Kingdom, where copyright laws are more lax."
True, although Clarke phrases it a little differently. "I departed the US for a variety of reasons, one of which was that Intellectual Property law in the UK is less pro-corporate, and therefore more pro-innovation," he told p2pnet.net.
"Wayne Rosso, the man behind file-sharing service Grokster, left for a peer-to-peer network in Spain, again saying goodbye to thorny copyright issues," the story goes on.
Also true, although as Rosso happily admitted when it was announced that he was leaving Grokster, greed was also had a great deal to do with his decision.
US copyright laws, "designed decades before the Web was ever conceived, have tied file sharing – and many other Internet technologies – in knots," says Sternstein, going on:
"The traditional holders of copyrighted material have dug in for a long fight against any loosening of the laws. In 1998, after intense lobbying from The Walt Disney Co. and other companies, the U.S. Congress passed a law making corporate copyrights good for 95 years and those owned by individuals good for 70 years past the creator’s death.
"In January, the U.S. Supreme Court extended that law for another 20 years. But if the old-liners continue to get their way, the public domain in the U.S. will virtually disappear.
"And early-stage Internet innovations from digital music stores to virtual actors will forever be stuck behind legal firewalls."
She points out that an RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) spokesman claims two billion songs worldwide are downloaded illegally every month; software developers such as Microsoft say the industry loses more than $10 billion per year to illegal software; the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) puts piracy losses in the US at more than $3 billion per year; and, according to lobbyists BSA (Business Software Alliance), a ten-point drop in worldwide piracy over the next four years would add 1.5 million jobs and $400 billion in additional economic growth.
And don’t forget lawsuits, "against both the downloaders and the Internet service providers that transmit their booty," are piling up, Sternstein says.
DRM (digital rights management) control technology essentially assigns usage rights and fees to everything from entertainment to e-mails to medical records, the Forbes story emphasises. But in the end the protection of content and jobs depends on collaboration between producers and distributors – something else everyone but the international corporate community accepted many moons ago.
There may not be any consensus on how to control distribution and licensing of content, but most agree that it’s a train that can’t be stopped, says Sternstein, adding:
"History shows that conventional media reflexively shuns novel technology. In 1908, a music publisher sued a player piano company. The Supreme Court ruled that making piano rolls was not close enough to publishing music to be prohibited. In 1984, Universal City Studios and Walt Disney Productions took the VCR to court. There, the judges decided that taping TV programs at home was fair use, to the glee of VCR and Betamax makers and owners.
"Hanson, the teen group behind the hit song ‘Mmmbop,’ launched a Web site during the Web’s music infancy. Six years later -with a new album and tour – the brothers still support online music. ‘Whether it’s a tax or 99 cents for a song, we gotta work something out,’ says 18-year-old Zac Hanson.
"Somewhere in the middle of cyberspace, the kids and the grown-ups have to lay down some ground rules. Even the U.S. Constitution was a compromise."
