Peer to Peer networks have been pointed at as the cause of the Music industries woes for some time now. Now the Software industry is complaining about the same thing. The apparently took a $29 billion hit in 2003. While I would not be surprised to find this accurate, maybe the software industry should stop by Eric Raymond’s site and have him show them the way to enlightenment, the reason why their business model for closed software fails to meet real market needs.
And the issue with peer to peer networks does not stop there. Now Congress is looking to pass a bill called the Induce Act. This bill would make it illegal for anyone to produce a peer to peer network client that *might* be used to download copyrighted material. This means the people who write software like Kazaa can be held liable if you use their software to do the illegal downloading. Think this sounds like a solution to the problem? Think again!
The bill is written in such broad terms that it says that anyone who produces anything that induces someone else to break copyright law is liable. Hmmm, I see many VCR manufacturers going to court, probably a few makers of CD writers too; and hey, what about TiVo? I bet Apple could get sued for illegal MP3’s on people’s iPods as well. There are so many things we use in our daily lives that could fall under this category it’s not funny. This is the stupidity of senators like Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (between this guy and Bush I’m gonna start voting Democrat by default, at least until the Libertarians have viable candidates), who introduced the bill. Just how dumb do you have to be to get a seat in Congress. Remember, this is the Senator who got busted with illegal software on his web server after he first started saying he wanted to give the RIAA the ability to fry the computer of anyone who was sharing files.
So now everyone is responsible for everyone elses actions? Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
When this mess is finally over it will be the real innovators, those who figure out how to use the digital medium without taking away all of the consumers rights that win. Apple and Magnatune seem to be leading the way into the new digital business model.
This whole business about trying to strip away all of the customers rights is going to end up backfiring someday.
For a good dose of reasoned thought on this subject read Lawrence Lessig’s blog.
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