Lessig Says Tech Advances Will Make Copy Protection Debate Useless
from the follow-the-trends dept
Legislators have many problems when they get into legislating around technology, but one of the big ones is that they often see the world as constant. Or, if they extrapolate, they do so to ridiculous extremes, not realizing that increasing what a technology does, doesn't mean that people will just use it for more of whatever they use it for. So, now Larry Lessig is saying that the debate over copy protection is meaningless for that very reason. Politicians (and the entertainment industry) see increasing broadband adoption, and say that more people will download music. Lessig says that increasing broadband adoption means that it will soon be possible to offer high quality streaming services - such that people won't need to bother downloading any more. "We're legislating against a background of the Internet's current architecture of content distribution, and this is a fundamental mistake." Howard Berman (who wants to let Hollywood hack into your computer) responded by saying that all the complaints from tech companies are just "self-pity" because their businesses aren't doing so well right now. Of course, couldn't the same thing be said about the music industry? At least the tech industry is trying to improve technology. All the music industry can do is whine to the government about protecting their obsolete business models.
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