Security beyond Obscurity

Cory Doctorow has again hit the proverbial nail on the head in his Guardian article entitled, "Illegal filesharing: A suicide note from the music industry" -- The deal between record companies and ISPs will drive music-swapping underground and erode their profits still further"

Under the new scheme, the rule of law is replaced by a cosy inter-industry deal. Whereas before, anyone who wanted your ISP to spy on your internet connection would have had to show evidence to a judge and get a court order, now any joker who claims to be an aggrieved copyright holder can do so.

I'm a science fiction writer by trade, but even I am impressed by the incredible inventiveness on display in the figures used by the record industry to justify this measure: they add up all the kids who've downloaded a song this week, multiply by the highest retail price, add 30% to account for the wear and tear on their faces from tugging at their beards in dismay, and announce a billion quid "piracy loss" that government and ISPs have to step up and do something about right now, please and thanks, and forget about all that tedious law business.

The original Napster had a fine proposition: they would charge their users for signing onto their network and write a cheque for as-many-billions-as-you-like to the record industry every quarter. After all, they had the fastest-growing technology in the history of the world at their disposal, 70 million internet users in 18 months, and they'd found that the average American user was willing to spend $15 a month for the service. The record industry sued them into a smoking hole instead, and out of the ashes of Napster arose dozens of new networking technologies. Each one was more hardened against monitoring and disconnection than the last.

And that's just the highlights!! Great article. Great thoughts. I hope the RIAA is reading it.

Control is not what music is all about ... if that's what they wanted, they should have gotten into a totally different venue of products. Music is to help people feel free! They are stifling that and their own products!

Cory has written so many great articles for The Guardian as well as other places on the web.

Cory Doctorow's articles on The Guardian

Also check out his May 20, 2008 article entitled, "The odds are stacked against us."