On Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 05:59:39PM +0100, Daniel James wrote: > The industry has deliberately confused the two - comparing p2p users > with shoplifters, for example. If someone gets busted for > shoplifting, it's not because of copyright infringement - it's > because of theft of physical property, or atoms. Agreed. My favorite analogy is this: Suppose that a thief breaks into my home and steals one CD. Since Radiohead sparked this discussion, let's say it's my Radiohead "The Bends" CD which I happen to have in front of me at the moment, and which was released by Capitol, and which I purchased at retail price. Does Capitol have a right to prosecute the thief? Does Radiohead have a right to prosecute the thief? > Just suppose you hear a song on the radio - are you stealing it, if > you later choose not to by the CD? I bet there are lots of people > listening to the radio right now, who have no intention of buying the > music they are hearing. It's absurd to imagine that you could extract > payment from each and every listener in the analogue domain, hmm. Actually, commercial radio attempts to do this, in a funny way, through the licensing fees that are paid to BMI, ASCAP et al. > so why > should the labels expect to do this in the digital one? Because > they've been sold DRM snake oil, I expect. We're basically revisiting the radio wars, which produced the license fee business model for radio. There will be floundering until somebody comes up with a new business model that the record companies can live with (or until they go extinct, I suppose). Personally I think that copy-protected media is doomed to fail. -- Paul Winkler http://www.slinkp.com Look! Up in the sky! It's THE CHAIR! (random hero from isometric.spaceninja.com)
