-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Peter Gutmann wrote: | KPMG have a report "The Digital Challenge: Are You Prepared?" available at | http://www.kpmg.com/news/index.asp?cid=660 [snip] | Media companies have so far failed to pioneer new business models that would | rob piracy of its appeal. Preoccupied with defending the barricades against | pirates, the industry has shown a deficit of creativity and innovation in | rolling out products and services that can compete with the pirates.
Clearly the opportunities being presented right now are vast - the major players are dilly-dallying, trying to hold onto their tangible distribution schemes like they're catching water with a sieve, and all the while the systems they try (sometimes successfully) to shut down evolve continuously to couteract their moves. To the extent that the traditional companies are pursuing those they can - via lawsuits, new rules and fake files - relatively little has been achieved from a user point of view that wasn't in place a couple of years ago (i.e. post Napster). p2p is still considered an "illegal" idea. We've seen Kazaa introduce a peer-based trust scheme (the "integrity" column in v2), but now is the perfect time for such protocols to grab the initiative and start undermining traditional systems, in an effort to prove the flaws of the backwards-thinking highlighted by the KPMG report. Implement a peer review system of media files, for example - this is little different to the Integrity rating above, but with a relatively minute adaptation it could be shaped, and used to link to review texts, genres, sell-throughs... Similarly, artists would be encouraged by the new process if schemes such as musiclink.com were easily accessible within p2p programs, if the users were aware of what was possible. The point is that the channels opened by the public want of free goods can, and should be readily adapted to encapsulate an entirely new philosophy, independent of the media companies' monopolies. Otherwise, DRM will trudge into place like a fat unwanted house guest, and we'll be stuck with the way things ever were. .g -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.0 (MingW32) Comment: http://enigmail.mozdev.org - public key @ http://www.exmosis.net iD8DBQE9oaBawT+AXPPRTIgRAgrKAKDSjetBLaZjctLh87gFUrr/zYTKOgCggDoc F2G/4alL+yPmG6OnIX/eQw8= =Ml17 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
