Friday July 23, 2004

If you haven't heard of the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004, then read a sample article (this Cnet News article) and read the Orrin Hatch news release (FYI, this bill has bipartisan support). This press release is a worrisome in many ways.

Technology is used to increase efficiency and to drive down costs. Consumers have applied this efficiency to downright theft. That is worrisome. This is not a new problem as VCR's have been around a long time. Anyone want to guess what percentage of VCR tapes hold illegal content? What percentage of re-writeable CDs and DVDs contain illegal content? While in Shanghai a couple years ago, I was literally hit up 5 times in 15 minutes in a small street market with this proposition: "DVD? CD? $2." Peer-to-Peer just eliminates the $2 out of the equation. No, I didn't buy anything. Frankly, it disgusted me. Sitting at Starbucks I see college kids browsing P2P networks looking for music. Using P2P for theft is pretty much "culturally accepted" and frankly rather blatant. As consumers, we have brought this bill upon ourselves.

I am hacking around with Jxta right now on my spare time. P2P has wonderful potential to solve some pretty tough problems. Hopefully this bill does not restrict the adoption of P2P. I personally see the benefits outweighing the loss of revenue from current digital theft, althought theft does have to be addressed. What is also worrisome is that bills like this will not stop at P2P. Today its P2P, tomorrow its something else that pops up that is even more efficient. I worry that there is a law of unintended consequences at play somewhere here.

We are in need of a cultural change regarding digital theft. I just don't know how to effect that change.