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How Big Music Threatened Startups and Killed Innovation .. and a contrasting case | 335 comments | Create New Account
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How Big Music Threatened Startups and Killed Innovation
Authored by: Wol on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 01:21 PM EDT
And (while I doubt it will happen) this is exactly what should be used in a
court case to overturn the relevant laws as being anti-constitutional. As in,
using colour of law to defy the constitutional justification for such law.

A defence of "You are using copyright law to hinder progress of the
arts" should be - if proven - nuclear devastation to the plaintiff.

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

How Big Music Threatened Startups and Killed Innovation .. and a contrasting case
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 10 2012 @ 04:26 PM EDT
Couldn't help but compare this, and the reactions of various
actors, with another technology that went from physical
support to bits on the wire: Check processing. You actually
could expand that to "payment processing", but I think that
check processing is a better example.

Processing checks is very similar to distributing CDs.
There are third parties involved, the bank may or may not
have trucks, the real-time constraints.

Yet, banks embraced "truncation" and put a whole flurry of
subcontractors out of business. General aviation was badly
hit: A pilot could get very useful all-weather training
ferrying checks to the local Federal Reserve. The pilot is
in a worse position than the record store, and nobody cares.

How comes no-one yelled loud that this was stealing? The
legal hurdles, instead of being propped higher, were
flattened, as banks pushed new laws to allow digital images
to be regarded as the legal equivalent of a piece of paper.

There also are piracy schemes -- I suppose heard about gas
station credit card fraud rates -- but that didn't cause the
Banks to give up. Even when starters like PayPal started
encroaching on their middleman position.

Oh yes, both industries essentially gouge the public by
selling services at a price out of proportion with their
cost.

I still am amazed by how the most unreasonable, the least
necessary, and arguably the most corrupting of the two
sectors gained such a huge place in the political and legal
circles.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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