Piracy: Who's to Blame? Part 2

to stave off their own demise?

Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have each released albums to the general public, accepting donations in lieu of payment for the album. Both of these bands were well-established prior to the release, but their shift in business model was far from a failure. Both bands profited from the releases.

The technology behind decentralized file-sharing has existed for years now. It may be futile for companies to even try shutting down sites like The Pirate Bay. It's easy to imagine brand new sites popping up to replace every indexing or tracking site shut down by RIAA/IFPI. There is a name for this -- the "Streisand Effect". This is "an internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized." (Wikipedia)

The global online network is built with a fault-tolerant design; that is, when the internet senses damage, it reroutes data around it. It will be hard to overcome this design feature without resorting to censorship or litigation -- media companies seem ready to try, though.

Media and software companies do have money and influence on their side. This allows them to lobby for legislation to literally change the law. It will be frightening if they have their way -- the potential ramifications to copyright law and censorship; would drastically alter the landscape of the internet. This is why network neutrality and political involvement are important; if people don't push back, the internet as we know it will cease to exist. (If you think only the "bad guys" will suffer, think again.)

Obviously, the concept of paying for software or music isn't extinct -- in theory. In practice, it may just be a few years until piracy becomes far more commonplace than purchasing. I won't incriminate anyone, but I know firsthand that awareness is on the rise. As the younger, more technologically-savvy consumer realizes what choices are out there, it's easy to see the concept of "buying" fall by the wayside.

The first generation of p2p software, Napster, was introduced in 1999. Napster didn't use a decentralized system, and was shut down in July 2001 after lawsuits were brought from several recording companies. Since then, multiple peer-to-peer networks have been created. It's difficult to envision every one of these p2p networks being dismantled at the whim of record labels, when there are wholly legitimate uses for the technology. And, as stated above, torrents are decentralized by design -- the only way to stop downloaders is by policing the ISP's.