Most of this has been said before, but it's fairly good reading.
http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rulemaker000907.htm
> Lawsuits Cripple Capitalism
>
> Consumers are the best people to choose which technologies live and
> die, not lobbyists, lawyers, and judges. Rather than spending all
> their time fighting breakthrough technology like cassette tapes, the
> VCR, and now digitally downloadable music and video, organizations
> like the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording
> Industry Association of America should run with the tide of
> capitalism.
>
> By [2]Rob Landley (TMF Oak)
> September 7, 2000
>
> I've been inflicting my strange opinions on intellectual property upon
> readers of the Fool On The Hill column [3]recently, since it's
> designed to handle opinions that not everybody agrees with. But a lot
> of this stuff is so amazingly obvious I don't think it falls under the
> category of "opinion" anymore. Here's a few examples.
>
> This excellent New York Times [4]piece, "Is Litigation the Best Way to
> Tame New Technology?" starts with a long quote from Jack Valenti,
> president of the Motion Picture Association of America (the guy's
> suing because their DVD encryption was weak enough to be broken by a
> 16-year-old). He said that, "The growing and dangerous intrusion of
> this new technology" threatened the entire industry's "economic
> vitality and future security," and further that the new technology "is
> to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston
> Strangler is to the woman alone."
>
> This speech was given in 1982, and he was referring to the invention
> of the video cassette recorder, without which none of us would be
> renting movies. Video rentals are a SIGNIFICANT portion of a modern
> movie's overall revenue, and they fought tooth and nail to keep it
> from happening.
>
> The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) fought similarly
> against the invention of recordable cassette tapes, which they sold a
> ton of once they stopped fighting it. The Motion Picture Association
> of American (MPAA) is [5]currently fighting to tighten laws around
> digital programs that consumers can record on DVD players and VCRs.
>
> Of course, if you have enough money to manipulate the legal system,
> you can create laws to suit your tastes. And I'm not just talking
> about lobbying. How about picking a judge who used to work for you?
> Judge Lewis Kaplan (who presided over the first DVD trial and ruled in
> favor of the MPAA) provided counseling services for Time Warner
> [6](NYSE: TWX) on DVD issues before he became a judge, according to
> [7]this story from the Electronic Frontier Federation, a nonprofit
> civil liberties organization. His various publicly stated opinions
> include the belief that "commerce trumps the first amendment," which
> apparently means that magazines that publish negative product reviews
> should be sued out of business.
>
> People who agree with this mindset must hate the PC industry. It
> succeeded because IBM's [8](NYSE: IBM) original PC was cloned by
> competitors who offered faster, stronger, and cheaper versions than
> IBM had. IBM's original offering couldn't even displace the Apple II.
> These days IBM's PC division is barely a factor in the vibrant and
> thriving marketplace that grew up through capitalist competition.
>
> When the Internet threatened telephone companies' long distance plans
> (because customers could talk to each other for a flat monthly fee and
> phone companies insisted on charging by the minute), the knee-jerk
> reaction was to sue and lobby for protective legislation. I'm sure
> horse stables sued the first automobile manufacturers, and lobbied to
> make cars illegal. (Nasty smelly noisy things, dangerous. They run
> people over. Shouldn't be allowed.) It's almost a reflex action.
>
> Officials at Germany's Justice are pushing for legislation so that
> computers, printers, modems, CD burners, and anything else that could
> conceivably be used to copy something copyrighted will be taxed, with
> the proceeds going to (of course) the large music and film companies
> that did the lobbying, according to [9]this story. The frightening
> part is that legislation similar to this already exists in the United
> States (which is why standalone CD burners cost so much more than
> computers, which weren't included in the legislation). And in Canada,
> they tax blank burnable CDs.
>
> Where in this scheme is the free market's invisible hand, allocating
> capital to things consumers want and starving things that nobody wants
> to buy? CD distribution has competition now: digital music transferred
> through the Internet. This legislation fights directly AGAINST the
> actions of the free market, where millions of consumers simply decide
> they prefer the new way over the old. The old digital media companies
> have chosen NOT to participate in the new revolution, and thus are
> getting creamed in that space.
>
> Imagine a record company that never allowed its songs to be played on
> the radio because people could tape them off the radio and that would
> kill record sales. The reality is quite clearly the reverse: radio
> play drastically increases record sales. But the tired old men
> circling the wagons around the old technology can't wrap their heads
> around that concept in a new context.
>
> What any producer has to do is provide a product consumers want. We're
> capable of selling bottled water in this country (something that comes
> out of the tap by the gallon, virtually for free). An industry that
> feels it needs to tax POTENTIAL customers to guarantee its future
> revenue stream has serious problems, and it ignores the fact that
> revenue has never been guaranteed in the free market. What the MPAA
> and RIAA are afraid of is that customers will choose not to buy its
> products, and it responds by taking the choice away from them and
> replacing it with a tax.
>
> Didn't the Soviet Union try an economic plan along these lines for
> most of last century? I'm sure it sounded like a good idea at the
> time. I think Jack Valenti seriously needs to go read Adam Smith's
> "[10]The Wealth of Nations." But that's just my opinion.
>
> For more along the same vein today, see Nico Detourn's [11]article
> about Seagram's lawsuit against MP3.com.
>
> Finally, bad news for Rule Maker Land today. Quintessential Rule Maker
> Bill Gates was the first to be kicked off the island in [12]Fool
> Survivor. You can vote who will be the next to go!
[2]
http://www.fool.com/About/staff/rlandley.htm
[3]
http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2000/foth000724.htm
[4]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/biztech/articles/02napster.html
[5]
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2623119,00.html
[6]
http://quote.fool.com/uberdata.asp?symbols=TWX
[7]
http://www.eff.org/Intellectual_property/Video/20000715_dvd_update.html
[8]
http://quote.fool.com/uberdata.asp?symbols=IBM
[9]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000906/wr/germany_tax_dc_1.html
[10]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679424733/o/motleyfool-features/
[11]
http://www.fool.com/news/2000/mppp000907.htm
[12]
http://www.fool.com/folly/games/survivor/report.htm
--
Gerald Oskoboiny <
[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/