Copyright laws have been here for years now to prevent plagiarism especially in written content and works of creativity.These were gradually extended to songs,movies and other means of entertainment.With the advent of the information age the whole world is connected through the Internet.Peer-to-Peer sharing of information is the order of the day now this is posing a threat to the global monopoly and the economic order imposed by the economic strongmen.The entertainment companies are trying to revert technological development to scuffle information sharing.They consider sharing of mp3 songs,movies,videos through the internet as a violation of copyright laws.The business model adopted by these companies are not in times with the information era it just concentrates on profits rather than logic.The main argument given by these companies is that the violation of copyright hurts the creator and is an insult to creativity.The companies also argue that for every file downloaded hurts the CD sales to great extent while this is baseless as all songs downloaded would not be bought. Now in reality if a customer is made to suffer like following these idiotic procedures many would not even hear to most songs.The companies should go for alternative business models as proposed by people like Edben Mogellen like customers contributing voluntarily to the creators.Information technology connected through networks facilitate manipulation and sharing of huge data very easily.
Now why was copying say printed material is not feasible for everyone is that the technology is costly but digital technology gives us infinite copying in just a mouse click without any loss of quality.Thus applying same copyright laws defies any logic and negates the very advantage of digital revolution.In Peer-to-Peer networks data is not stored in a single server but among peer computers.Every user is making information available to others instantaneously.
Tracing people by using IP addresses and randomly suing people for copyright violation has become the order of the day.The records industry is intimidating people by threatening them through courts. The copyright laws applied to present digital technology does not make sense.
The Draconian DRM:-
The companies have come up with an assault on information freedom by the new digital rights management which prevents copying entertainment material available in a specific encrypted formats.Thus if you need a song say on your player,ipod,computer you need to buy separately for everyone of them.Now these stupidities first of all irritate customers and the DRM methods are continuously broken in the Internet thus making them ineffective.Music is not brought anymore its just rented for specific time.It is impossible to come up with a DRM system that is unbreakable.Its an assault on the culture of freedom and pushes to a permission culture.The products of our culture like music,art,movies are not available for future use and may cripple innovation affecting creators of the future generation.the DRM will lock down the culture of information and freedom.With growing number of Internet users in India i believe the entertainment industry should go in for creative business model rather than joining the bandwagon.Restricting internet users is not feasible at all as the web is too big .
Conclusion–>The global capitalists are waging a lost battle in ensuring monopoly and preventing the free flow of information which the digital era promises.These steps are highly retrograde in nature and affect technological advancements.Hope the plot is broken and Long live Freedom 🙂
Scratches in my grey matter 