"Disruptive communications technologies like satellite TV, P2P and whatever comes next should be embraced for the innovations they provide, not disdained for the headaches they cause along the way."

That's the message which comes in a Denver Post article by Stephen Keating, executive director of the Denver-based Privacy Foundation and author of 'Cutthroat,' a book about cable and satellite television.

Called File sharing or file stealing? Keating's piece says what's missing in this debate is the knowledge that we've been here before. And he's referring to the satellite TV industry.

"An innovative communications technology disrupts the old order, giving millions of people free access to new media, which causes economic damage to copyright holders, who seek legal and technological remedies," he states.

The home satellite TV went legit only after a, "long, drawn-out battle that involved Congress, the courts, plenty of copyright attorneys and technological innovation." But ultimately, it led to one of the most successful consumer-electronics products of all times.

"A bonus was that piracy was marginalized," says Keating. "It still exists, of course. Some analysts estimate one pirate for every six legitimate satellite TV subscribers. The piracy of hard-wired cable service is thought to be somewhat less because it is harder to steal. Yet, the totality of such piracy is clearly on the margins, not center stage, as it is with the online music industry."

Whether one-in-six is 'on the margins' is, of course, debatable, but Keating goes on to make the point that every time new media arrives on the scene, "the old guard has cried foul, only to discover later that the human appetite for communication is ever-expanding and new markets are created."

As he says, radio feared the dawn of talking pictures. The movies feared broadcast television. Broadcast TV feared cable, which feared satellite TV. The movie studios feared VCRs, then found that a whole new billion-dollar market in home entertainment had been created.

"The RIAA could file lawsuits now until the end of time and still not crush online piracy," he adds. "The music industry's failure to embrace new download technology has spurred the pirates.

"Congress should revisit the laws governing intellectual property and copyright in a digital age. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which the RIAA used as a basis for filing its lawsuits, may itself need an upgrade."

as Code used to say, piracy involves murder and robbery on the "high seas". These guys are liars, plain and simple. End of story. Period.
-bulkeraser
"Making blanks out of ones and zeros"

This is why the RIAA will get blown out of the water. Failure to adapt.

P2P is a great technology. Groups like the RIAA are simply afraid of change. They fear a loss of control once they move into digital downloading. Which they should. After all, once downloaded a song can be stipped of it's DRM technology and distributed unrestricted.

However, what they fail to see is a universal format. If all record companies were to create one great file-sharing service and offer downloads for 99 cents in unrsestriced mp3 format it would not even be worth it to download pirate copies because such a site would have an extremely large selection and a format that can be transfered everywhere.

What the records are also afraid of is a loss in profits. They can no longer sell an $18 CD with one good song. They will now have sell each song seperately for 99 cents.

Hey, that's the internet. Making it eaiser for the consumer. No matter what happens the big five are going to start loosing money. Wether they remain stoic about selling outdated CD's that are constantly dropping in sales or they sell mp3 online for a much lower cost.

There time of control is coming to an end.

Hail Mp3!!!

THE RIAA CAN STUFF IT FURTHUR UP THEIR BUTTS

Sorry but I don't feel like paying for mp3s.
If they adopt lossless format ok then.

If you can find a way to compress a 16-bit 44.1khz 2-channel wave into a lossless 320kbit file, then we will see more lossless formats used for internet distribution.

Tick...Tock...Tick...Tock...

"Yet, the totality of such piracy is clearly on the margins, not center stage, as it is with the online music industry."

Yeah, right. P2P is “center stage” for the decline in CD sales.

Consider:
1) Fewer RIAA total releases
2) One hit wonder artist de jour crap
3) Outrageously overpriced (price-fixed) product
4) 1 to 10 ratio of decent track to filler garbage tracks
5) Poor economy

P2P sharing falls into the margins also. Keating is either clueless or bought or ignorant or any combination.

I have had satellite TV off and on for some time. I have been offered or have seen ads to get the upgraded (illegal) chips. That is one of those constant battle things as the cable and the satellite folks set bullets to try and disable such chips. I don’t watch that much TV. So it never seemed worth it to me to go that route.

Notice a pattern here? New technology comes out, consumer embraces it, and entrenched industries try to stifle the technology. Maybe, just maybe, our industries need to get a new business model and catch up with the rest of the world. Most industries jump in at some point, find their niche, and settle back to expand and reap the profits. That is the problem right there. When they settle back they stop reaching for the growth, the keep up, and the hunger to stay alive. They expect the world to stop and stay with them. This doesn’t happen in the real world. The real world keeps on growing, keeps on learning, and keeps on reaching. The industries get left behind in the process and instead of trying to keep up and learn something new, they try to protect their turf by regulation. They are not doing in business and industry what they are doing in private life. This is where the rub is.

Mp3’s as several others and I have mentioned in the past is not an exact copy. It is a poor mans copy and leaves much to be desired when it comes to getting all the ambience, background, and the rest of the recording. Being as much of the song is cut out to make it possible for the song to fit in a compressed format. This is not an exact copy, which is what copyright is concerned with. What mp3 does well, is give artists exposure, without payola. That is something that the entrenched major labels can not have as they pay big money to ensure you only hear what they want on the radio. If you hear their songs only then it is supposed that is the only exposure to music you have and there for will be the only music you will buy. What has been left out of this is the embracing of new technology. The very thing that killed buggy whip manufacturers and record players was this lack of adapting to new technology constantly coming out.

Over and over again you hear of music fans discovering new music and artists and buying because of that. That leaves the role of radio out of the picture. Do we see the possibility of another media format dying because of failure to keep up with the times and entrenching? It is likely as the radio has become to entrenched in the present business model and fails to respond to the public’s desire for new music from new sources. Pushing just as much against the present business model are musicians who are feed up with the thieves that run the music industry. We see how the music industry is dealing with the present problem of new technology, once again attempting to entrench and with the “change the world instead” attitude.

Well the world had to say goodbye to the dinosaur before and in small terms it has had to say it again and again to those that won’t change. Can the RIAA say extinct?

I honestly don't mind paying for something as long as it's good. The record companies are running scared now becuase guess what? They're bread & butter (the musicians) are realizing that P2P and Apple's ITUNES are the way of the future. The best way to deal with this is to open the ENTIRE music catalog (even public domain) and sell them music as mp3, aac, ogg, or wma format for about a buck a track and no subscriptions, no contacts and last but not least, NO DRM of any kind.
Also, I wanna say that the record companies better be careful becuase these college students that they are suing are one day gonna be the techies, lawyers and so fourth of the future. They will never forget. I know I won't.
I also wanna let you guys know that I recently bought Madonna's American Life CD and I ripped the tracks as mp3 on my PC and after a month, I opened one to pay it and it wouldn't....some sort of DRM was encoded into them. I was so pissed. I even looked throughout the CD to see if it said anything about copy-protection and it didn't. I have a problem with that. It's one thing to want to protect your content from unauthorized distribution, but have some sort of warning on the CD saying that it has DRM on it. that is what I was angry about. I paid $15 for this CD from this fucking bitch and i get screwed too. The the record lables wonder why people download and share on P2P networks.
All of you record label reps listen to me, keep up what you are doing becuase you are gonna find your jobs lost you just lost another customer. Fuck You.

"may itself need an upgrade."

There is no "may" about it just do it and screw upgrade it needs to go altogether. To make the point clear the people that wrote it need to be castrated and have their limbs boiled in oil. That will make corporations think twice about buying laws and congressmen about taking the payment.

First off, I agree with the article, this is like the radio 50 years ago... anyhow, as a paying consumer who got ripped off for the last ten years by the RIAA, instead of me being called a god damn pirate (arggghhh matey) they should be giving me an apology and start making cheaper cds!!! Secondly, I was listening to a bunch of older music anywheres from the 50's to the late 80's and i have now realized that the RIAA started making complete garbage after 1989 oddly enough.. first came MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, New Kids on the Block, Backstreet boys.. Ect ( I could name about 500 more jerk offs who suck) These acts were manufactured to sing crap like puppets.. we might as well call the RIAA ventriliquist because unless I want to listen to someone singing about Ho's, Crack, their baby's mamma, or how I drive myself crazy (some boy band) i have to listen to PRE 1990's music... ITS ALL CRAP!!!

That's strange. I just looked into what it would take the harness the radiation already coming straight through the walls of my home from these satellites in orbit around our planet. I was totally [edit] off that in order for me to watch the debates between the current Democatic Candidates, I had to be paying over $45 dollars a month to the monopolistic cable company (Comcast; which I will note is the only cable company that services this region; {hence bends people over and [edit] them right up the [edit]}) just to watch these debates. That totally [edit] me off. So I immediately turned to the internet to research how I could harness these big corporate radiation providers in the sky, so that I would never have to succum to being bent over and [edit] up the [edit] like the rest of the people who have cable in my region. So, if you think I'm stealing from these multi-billion dollar corporations for harnessing this radiation and sharing songs with my peers, then call me a "Pirate", take my birthday away from me, and change my name to Black Beard.

~goingnova

all this reminds me of Tucker the car maker back in the day who made great cars with innovative features but the established car producers didnt want to share any of their monopoly on cars. He thusly became the product of a concerted smear and defamation campaign that drove him and company bankrupt and out of the car business altogether. Sadly this is the"business model" that most large corporations resort to so they can maintain market share.... sounds like they(record companies) are the true pirates, robbing from the consumer and telling them what a good deal they are getting

P2P should always be free or almost free its using OUR BANDWIDTH. if they want to charge for songs they should be using multiple oc48 backbones so we can get instant transfers every single time. If i had to pay for something i downloaded and it wasn't over 800k at school or 150k at home id be sooooo mad.

P2p is slow. If some labels were to set up a large music site with fast transfers, high bitrates and unrestrictive rules they would sell a lot. So far they have only made token attempts through, such as pressplay with its heavy restrictions. The pick-and-mix music sites dont fit their existing business model, which depends largely on people buying whole albums to get one track.