It's about control, but control of money. If content distributers (not the content authors, on the whole) think they can find ways of making more money off their products, they'll try. They never seem to look at the long term, though.
Shut down Napster, people will just use any of the many alternatives like Gnutella, that are almost impossible to shut down.
CD distributers claim CD sales are off because of Napster, but all the statistics I've seen show just the reverse.
In the long run, you can't censor information. Once it's out there, it's out there, whether it's DeCSS or how to clone a human. If it's out there, it'll happen. Trying to close that door is just an exercise in futility.
As for content control, I also exercise my wallet to vote against it. I won't buy copy-protected software. I won't buy software requiring a dongle, even if it's the best out there. I'll live with something else. When MS locks each copy of Windows XtraProfit to one computer, I'll use the software I'm sure will appear quite soon to unlock it, so I can continue to upgrade my machine without approval from MS.
Next thing you know, book publishers won't let us sell our books to anyone without paying them a fee...
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Date: 2001-03-04 01:40 pm (UTC)Shut down Napster, people will just use any of the many alternatives like Gnutella, that are almost impossible to shut down.
CD distributers claim CD sales are off because of Napster, but all the statistics I've seen show just the reverse.
In the long run, you can't censor information. Once it's out there, it's out there, whether it's DeCSS or how to clone a human. If it's out there, it'll happen. Trying to close that door is just an exercise in futility.
As for content control, I also exercise my wallet to vote against it. I won't buy copy-protected software. I won't buy software requiring a dongle, even if it's the best out there. I'll live with something else. When MS locks each copy of Windows XtraProfit to one computer, I'll use the software I'm sure will appear quite soon to unlock it, so I can continue to upgrade my machine without approval from MS.
Next thing you know, book publishers won't let us sell our books to anyone without paying them a fee...