p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- Paying for information is “a dying behemoth,” says Alice Taylor, commissioning editor for education at Britain’s Channel 4 TV.

“‘ ‘Piracy’ – as done by teenagers, all my friends, pretty much everyone I know, is simply demand where appropriate supply does not exist,” she says on Scotland’s new Perspectives website, going on:

“Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies — in other words, anti-copying, anti-fair use — are also anti-accessibility. They attempt to block and restrict, and they fail every time. Every single time.”

Taylor, married to Cory Doctorow, says to be accessible, “work needs to be available, always and to everyone, going on »»»

No delineations, no restrictions: it’s too messy. Too expensive. Too dull.

Restricting access restricts a person’s ability, as a creator, to be discovered. We must embrace accessibility, and think open and global. Think spreadable and shareable. Perhaps free, perhaps not: see what works. Try it: if you have a digitised creation, try selling digital copies. Try giving it away for free, alongside a tip jar. See what happens. Examine internet-native content producers like Joss Whedon – who has made far more money personally from his internet-native Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog than he has for his Fox-broadcast Dollhouse – and Felicia Day, Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Justin.tv, Ze Frank. The entire community of Etsy craftants and Spreadshirt-ers.

Accessibility gives us competitive, business advantage. It is inclusive of the blind and partially-sighted, who make up 70% of us humans over our life spans. It is inclusive of other cultures and tastes, and gives the creator access to a potential audience of Everyone. It’s inclusive of learning and the sharing of knowledge. The accessible content will leapfrog the locked-down content. It’s cheaper, too, and doesn’t that make business sense?

To push past bigger, older, more established businesses, the solution is to be agile and modern, to be internet-native and innovative. The older, slower dinosaur-works will sink, weighed down by their expensive defenses, regulations and costly and pointless protection mechanisms. We must not let these dying behemoths take away someone’s internet access – and connection to the world – for some accusatory, unprovable ‘piracy’ claim, ever.

“We must not let the internet’s neutrality be bought and sold by corporations,” says Taylor on Perspectives, adding:

“This is our free and global internet, in our 21st Century, and thinking of accessibility, it’s our greatest asset yet.

(Cheers, Fancy That)

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Perspectives – How do we ensure that creative content and work are accessible to all?, October 19, 2009

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 11:10 am and is filed under Freedom, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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