[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

This is exactly what I was referring to: Without even a vague description of what or how much security, you're assuming Doom and Gloom right out of the box. That, I reiterate, is an over-reaction to security and DRM.

We have already seen what the Corporations want; the DMCA was the first pass at that, as is many of the DRM schemes we see implemented out there. What is there already is too much Steve.

The American west was once essentially lawless and chaotic. Now that there are laws, those who insisted on the ability to let their cattle graze on other people's land have had to learn to deal with the law of property, and the security measure of fences, but the American west is hardly an Orwellian nightmare, right?

Keep in mind there is two sides to every story Steve. A lot of those cattle grazers had been grazing on the land for longer than the the land was considered anyone's property. The U.S. Government essentially gave it to others out from under them.

Besides, we are not talking about restricting someone trespass on another person's property, we are talking about giving corporations unprecedented levels of access to people's privacy and about major restrictions in what has been historically considered fair use of copyrighted works.

Without law and security, you end up with "vigilante" organizations like the RIAA, trying to establish order, doing a bad job of it, undermining the trust between businesses and consumers, and ultimately hurting commerce. Properly organized and publicly-accepted law and security could accomplish anti-piracy results (not 100%, or course, but measurable improvements), but in a more fair and acceptable manner.

They may be heavy handed, but RIAA is actually operating legally and are not like vigilantes. Copyright law depends on the holders of the copyright, not the state, to enforce the law. The solution of course is even worse which is letting the government do it.

So there's no reason to assume that beefing up law and security on the web will automatically result in the End of the World As We Know It. That fear is only holding back the development of the web and web businesses.

The Web has already been the End of the World as we Knew It.. and it will be again and again in the coming decades. That being said, that fear is only holding back traditional media. The rest of the web is developing at a break neck speed. Traditional News Papers and TV news for example are loosing customers very rapidly because younger people are getting their news online. The same will happen for books and TV if they don't stop worry about the potential for the pirates and start worrying about how to develop new profitable models of business in a world where ownership of information is tentative at best.

You know one this is interesting... I rarely see videos stolen from YouTube. YouTube has developed a model where it is far easier to simply link to YouTube than it is to steal the videos from them. This is a lesson the Publishing Industry needs to learn.

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Bill