Ever wonder how the copyright wars started? I think it has a lot to do with the national frenzy over the “information revolution” in the 80s and 90s and the certainty that the future would be all about selling bits. I argue this case in my new Information Week column, and show how trading the US manufacturing sector to preserve the entertainment industry was especially dumb in the “information age,” because from here on it, it’s just going to get easier and easier to copy information.
Not too long ago, back in 1985, the Senate was ready to clobber the music industry for exposing America’s impressionable youngsters to sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. For America, that was nothing new. Through most of it’s history, the U.S. government has been at odds with the entertainment giants, treating them as purveyors of filth.
Not anymore. The relationship between the entertainment industry and the U.S. government today is pretty cozy. Entertainment is using America’s clout to force Russia to institute police inspections of its CD presses, apparently oblivious to the irony of post-Soviet Russia forgoing its hard-won freedom of the press to protect Disney and Universal. The U.S. attorney general is proposing to expand the array of legal tools at the RIAA’s disposal, giving the organization the ability to attack people who simply attempt infringement.
How did entertainment go from trenchcoat pervert to top trade priority? I blame the “Information Economy.”
