3 ms·

The problem is actually two or three decades old: radio broadcasting and tape recorders initiated it. After the failed attempts to copy-protect CDs, the industr

The problem is actually two or three decades old: radio broadcasting and tape recorders initiated it. After the failed attempts to copy-protect CDs, the industry should have acknowledged that fighting piracy is essentially futile, and should have prepared for a transition in their business model. It's not like there were no warning, no signs. When Internet took of, the very first great IP battle was against software piracy. Even an industry that has the technical means to prevent piracy didn't really prevail, why would the music industry win it? Studying the struggles of the software industry could have learned them a lot on what was going to happen, and given them some leads on how to evolve: hardware protection with dongles can be translated in improved goodies and packaging; the shareware (ID Software, anyone?) model can be translated in crowd-founded music like My major company. They could even take a look at what the gaming industry is doing nowadays: subscription and micro-transactions.

wwweston 13y ago
Fighting piracy isn't what I'm talking about, though, and I think it boosts my last point that you even brought the topic up. It would seem that significant portion of the tech community can't seem to distinguish between the ideas that (a) the norm for recorded music should be that we pay for owning a copy of the recording and (b) we should take an aggressive approach to fighting piracy. But let's talk about radio broadcasting and tape recorders, because that might actually be an example of where we reached a reasonable equilibrium on this. It was understood that people did use them to get copies of recordings they didn't buy, but everybody learned to live with that, and the norm remained that to legitimately obtain a recording, you bought it. Software's like that too. Nobody's suggested the time for charging for software of any kind is over, that the end of software development is a service not a product. Some people choose to emphasize services (which is fine), some people choose the product route. Some people do both. Many who choose the product route do try for some defense against piracy -- it's the lock on the door of your house that you know can be broken with enough effort, but is still a good idea. Everybody knows there's still some piracy anyway, but the norm stays that software publishers can claim the right to have their stuff purchased. That's what I think we should be going towards for a healthy music industry.

wwweston 13y ago

Fighting piracy isn't what I'm talking about, though, and I think it boosts my last point that you even brought the topic up. It would seem that significant portion of the tech community can't seem to distinguish between the ideas that (a) the norm for recorded music should be that we pay for owning a copy of the recording and (b) we should take an aggressive approach to fighting piracy. But let's talk about radio broadcasting and tape recorders, because that might actually be an example of where we reached a reasonable equilibrium on this. It was understood that people did use them to get copies of recordings they didn't buy, but everybody learned to live with that, and the norm remained that to legitimately obtain a recording, you bought it. Software's like that too. Nobody's suggested the time for charging for software of any kind is over, that the end of software development is a service not a product. Some people choose to emphasize services (which is fine), some people choose the product route. Some people do both. Many who choose the product route do try for some defense against piracy -- it's the lock on the door of your house that you know can be broken with enough effort, but is still a good idea. Everybody knows there's still some piracy anyway, but the norm stays that software publishers can claim the right to have their stuff purchased. That's what I think we should be going towards for a healthy music industry.