Remember the days of taping that scared the music industry?

Posted on January 7th, 2005 by darkmoon

Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing posted this amusing little blurb on Downhill Battle’s new T-shirt. Back in the 1980s, the music industry was putting home taping is killing music on everything they could find. Eventually, hindsight shows that home taping was about as harmless as P2P. Like Cory, I smirked from the amusement of people that still don’t get it.

Tags: Music // View Comments

  • darkmoon
    Actually, the not "getting it" is similar to the recent news about BitTorrent. P2P and BitTorrent was never the problem. The sharing was the issue. If you want to break it down, don't send legal lawsuits to the transferring agents. Work with them to block/stop the problem. BitTorrent is used in many deliveries of open-source linux products. Busting BitTorrent just doesn't help matters. It's like if a person robs a bank and uses a Ford as a getaway car, that you implicate Ford Motors in the robbery. It makes absolutely no sense.
  • "I smirked from the amusement of people that still don't get it."
    Sure, not everyone will "get it" but the fact remains: It should always be up to the owner of the content to decide and control how that content is distributed and sold. If they choose to be dinosaurs and go the way of the dinosaurs-- fine. It's theirs to loose. But good business model or not, it's still their choice and any who violate that choice should end up in court.
    If, in the end it turns out that P2P helps increase sales then those that "get it" will profit, but that still doesn't make it right for P2P users to swap, sell, or offer for free what isn't their property. When you buy a book, record, CD, DVD, or software you become owner of one copy but you are not buying distribution rights.
    Yes, I see where many bands are profiting thanks to P2P but the decision should still belong to the owner of the content and not the buyer.
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