Here's another:
"Posted by: aleajactaest
In reply to: awk who wrote msg# 9800
Date:9/11/2003 10:41:33 PM
Post # of 43858
awk,
Thanks.
The Harvard people missed the point in a most surprising way.
Let's start with Lawrence Lessig's description of file sharing services as being morally "ambiguous". Why so?
He explains: "They can be used for good, and they can be used for evil. Certainly when they are used for evil purposes, like facilitating massive piracy, they ought to be prosecuted. But when they are used for good, people ought to have a right to use them."
Now doubtless Lessig's idea is that the "good" purpose of file sharing is the sharing of free public domain information between consenting users. I agree with him. That's a great use of the technology.
But the same may also be said for the use of the system for commercial ends, if those ends can be achieved according to the norms of property exchange as we encounter it day-to-day, and for that matter in much of the law. That's to say, if file sharing can be used for the exchange of property between contracting parties according to received rights of ownership - complex as they are - then that also may be counted as a "good" thing.
Now there may be disputes about what those received rights should be. How long should the term of copyright be? Should software be treated as something that is individually licensed to users or should it be subject to the fair use rules of copyright law? And those conversations are very important. But that is a different thing from the underlying principle that property ownership and exchange is itself a good thing. So let's leave these details of the argument to one side.
The TCG describes a structure in which distributed property would seem to thrive. Property is protected against theft when it is sent and when it is stored. It may be exchanged between sender and recipient according to the terms agreed upon before the transaction is effected. Subsequent changes may be made but only upon agreement of both parties - the security being adequate to ensure that this is the case. And at the same time, where a person elects, say, to view something at a price, the artist would be assured of payment as well. One peer to another.
Not only that, the means of distribution would be open to everyone. Anyone could distribute their movie to the world and be sure that they would be paid for their product and that it wouldn't be stolen by anyone. Hollywood (we hope) cannot lock up the distribution network, because the internet isn't built that way.
So not just an evolution of the property structure as it morphs into cyberspace. But a revolution in the means of distribution of property and the method of payment as well. A new economics.
What does that imply for the movie industry, for instance? It means they now have a very safe means to distribute their movies in digital form to the world - a mechanism both safer and cheaper than DVDs.
But it also means Hollywood faces competition in the creation of content from a mass of aspiring, but hitherto frustrated, budding film-makers. It means decisions about which movies get made will be massively decentralized. It is the end of megabucks salaries for Hollywood executives and stars, unless they can truly justify them in an open marketplace. It means the "mass market" will splinter into constituent interest groups. It means a much larger audience in total but many more low budget productions dealing with a slew of new subjects. In short, it means anyone anywhere can make a movie and have the possibility of it being a great financial success. And that success will be defined as each movie creates its own diaspora with its value spread by word of mouth through a global peer-to-peer network.
Extrapolate that to any large entity that thrives through the exchange of valuable information, whether it be the financial industry, the legal profession, the gaming industries, the corporate training industry, the music industry, the education system, government or what you will. And what you have is a gigantic reordering, and reduction in the price, of the means of distribution of valuable information.
And all the people at Harvard could see was the potential for the protected distribution of pirated material.
They kinda missed the point. And it was a little disappointing."
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