Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Cory Doctorow on the file sharing crackdown

An interesting and typically inflammatory piece from Mr Doctorow in the Guardian:

The original Napster had a fine proposition: they would charge their users for signing onto their network and write a cheque for as-many-billions-as-you-like to the record industry every quarter… The record industry sued them into a smoking hole instead… [here is] the tried-and-true answer to the problem of copyright-disrupting technology:

* acknowledge that it’s going to happen;

* find a place to collect a toll;

* charge a fee that’s low enough to get buy-in from the majority;

* ignore the penny-ante fee evaders;

* sue the blistering crap out of the big-time fee-evaders.

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Comments

0 responses to “Cory Doctorow on the file sharing crackdown”

  1. rutty

    I tend to agree with almost everything Cory Doctorow writes about the whole copyright/DRM subject. He’s my hero in that respect.

  2. Gary

    Ach, he tends to go OTT from time to time but I think he’s probably right on this one. Certainly history backs him up.

  3. B

    Cory tends to go off the deep end on the subject of copyright and DRM. I cringe when I hear that he’s advising politicians in the Canadian government. And, of course, Cory is going to find fault with everything the record companies do. This is a guy who thinks filesharing should be 100% legal. All the music, movies, software you can possibly grab for the low, low price of $0.

    “[Napster] had the fastest-growing technology in the history of the world at their disposal, 70 million internet users in 18 months, and they’d found that the average American user was willing to spend $15 a month for the service. The record industry sued them into a smoking hole instead”
    Ah, yes, in true Doctorow fashion, Cory seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that companies do offer all the music you can possibly download for a monthly fee. Here’s an article from January 2008 – a nearly six months before Cory wrote his article (and music rental has been around a lot longer than that):
    http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/where-is-apples-rental-service-for-music/

    Funny, it hasn’t been a big hit. Oh, right – we’re supposed to believe Cory when he says it, but not the reality when we actually see it.

    “I tend to agree with almost everything Cory Doctorow writes about the whole copyright/DRM subject. He’s my hero in that respect.”
    (cringe)