No Finger’s Gonna Save This Dike
Hollywood and the music industry keep trying to stick a finger in the hole in the downloading dike and it’s not going to work, but it is going to mess very heavily with public access until they give it up. The history is, what people can do without a whole lot of moralizing, they will.
We stop at red lights in the middle of the night when there’s no cross traffic because it’s the right thing to do and it contributes to social order and we don’t feel right flashing through. Most of us return a wallet found in the street for pretty much the same reasons.
But hardly anyone thinks twice about downloading a song or a video for (I think) a couple of reasons. First, they’re put off by paying sixteen bucks for a CD that costs twelve cents and only pays (maybe) a buck to the artist. They’re further put off by the horror stories told by every artist, film or music, of the heavy handedness on the part of the studios. Second, they don’t really see purchase as an option, don’t look at it personally …