Hollywood Succeeds in Delaying Human Progress
For years now both the RIAA and the MPAA have been fighting a moronic war against file sharing and those who are involved in it. First they started going after Napster because they were storing tons of copyrighted material on their servers for people to share. Sure, that's fine - completely understand that.
Then software eliminated central servers so the files were only stored on individual computers. So they went after the individual people and bypassed due process and often our civil liberties. Bad PR, bad solution, a lot of mistakes, made me loath them.
Finally they went after software makers themselves who make applications that allow users to share files. The entertainment industry actually claims that making such software is an inducement of copyright infringement and therefore those who make such apps should be held accountable for what those who use their software do.
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States found in Hollywood's favor. To sum up, this decision means that if the RIAA or MPAA don't like a device or application that "they feel" makes it easy for users to steal copyrighted material, then they can and will sue and most likely win now that the Supreme Court backs it.
Have we all gone insane? Would you blame Panasonic when a person copies a TV show onto a VCR and sells it on the street? Would you blame Apple for people using the iPod to copy their stolen songs? Why not sue Dell because they make computers that "can" let people store kiddie porn?
It makes no sense. Sure, if the software was ONLY used for such things, but it's not. I download tons of legal content such as syndicated radio shows, free music from artists etc... all through P2P networks and file sharing utilities. But now we'll be lucky if all of our best apps for these purposes survive the coming lawsuits.
I think the RIAA and MPAA are missing "huge" opportunities for online delivery of legally protected content for a price. Instead they try to halt the industry as a whole because they don't understand it.
Anyone remember when Universal sued Sony when BetaMax was released? They said that such technology would destroy their business. Hmmm, I guess they were wrong then and they're wrong now!
Here's where I read about it: ArsTechnica Article
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