RE: [lists] More on the straw man (burning issues?)

[Edward Barrow <edward@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Whatever the rights or wrongs of file-sharing, the technology is now  part 
of the environment. It's a genie that can't be put back in the bottle, but 
it can perhaps be tamed. This is where, in my opinion, the record-companies 
have made a strategic error.

It may - nay, will,  have a fundamental effect on the structure and shape 
of the music industry. So what? So did the gramophone.

Arguably, the corporate music industry was more threatened by the 
emergence, from the late 1980s, of affordable "bedroom-studio" technology: 
no longer was music production as capital-intensive as it had been. But the 
companies managed to bring underground dance music into the mainstream 
through their control of the distribution networks.

The success of iTunes shows that people are prepared to pay for downloaded 
music. Put an open payment and protection layer on top of Gnutella and the 
disintermediation of the record-companies will be complete....

One can dream.


Edward Barrow
New Media Copyright Consultant
http://www.copyweb.co.uk/
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