http://news.com.com/2010-1027_3-1023325.html [...] News.com: How much of a threat is Freenet to the recording industry and other large copyright holders, compared with Kazaa and popular P2P services? Clarke: That is difficult to say. The RIAA claims that P2P is to blame for their declining sales, yet they are in an industry that relies on discretionary spending in the middle of an economic slump. Of course, rather than blame the economy for declining sales, they blame P2P. In the longer term, however, I think it is inevitable that communication technology will reduce and eventually eliminate the role of those that profit from their monopoly over the physical distribution of music CDs. That isn't something anyone except the members of the RIAA should worry about--certainly not the artists, and certainly not the general public. Rather, this is a perfect example of capitalism in action. Just as the motor car replaced the horse and cart, so will the Internet replace most of the roles performed by today's recording industry. Oppenheim: Other than the fact that most infringers do not like to use Freenet because it is too clunky for them to get their quick hit of free music, it is no more of a threat than any of the popular P2P services. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Jul 07 2003 - 09:36:01 PDT