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cory doctorow
ThePirateBay and mythtv are right there, waiting to welcome us
in with open arms. ThePirateBay has already announced that it
is launching a YouTube competitor with no-plugin, in-browser
viewing. Plenty of entrepreneurs are looking at easing the pain
and cast of setting up your own mythtv box. The only reason that
the barriers to BitTorrent and mythtv exist is that it hasn’t been
worth anyone’s while to capitalize projects to bring them down.
But once the legit competitors of these services are killed, look
out.
The thing is, the public doesn’t want managed services with
limited rights. We don’t want to be stuck using approved devices
in approved ways. We never have — we are the spiritual descen-
dants of the customers for “illegal” record albums and “illegal”
cable TV. The demand signal won’t go away.
There’s no good excuse for going into production on a sequel to
The Napster Wars. We saw that movie. We know how it turns out.
Every Christmas, we get articles about how this was the worst
Christmas ever for CDs. You know what? CD sales are
never
going
to improve. CDs have been rendered obsolete by Internet distri-
bution — and the record industry has locked itself out of the only
profitable, popular music distribution systems yet invented.
Companies like Google/YouTube and TiVo are rarities: tech
companies that want to do deals. They need to be cherished by
entertainment companies, not sued.
(Thanks to Bruce Nash and The-Numbers.com for research assis-
tance with this article.)
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