Re: Copyright commerce and the street musician protocol

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

Marc Horowitz <marc@cygnus.com> writes:
> As long as it's cheaper or more convenient to buy digital media from
> the publisher than to copy it yourself, the piracy problem basically
> doesn't exist.
> [...]
> I'm unconvinced that there really is an Internet copyright problem,
> outside of traditional media publishers inventing it.

That principle works to some extent, particularly for the bandwidth
impoverished, and the currently bloated games software trying to fill
CD-ROMs with unnecessary junk for one presumes this very purpose.

Leave the bandwidth a while, and the problem may arise again.

I wonder at 2c/minute, say 2k/sec (28.8 modem) that's 6Mb/$ for me
(don't have free local call UK side).  That's $100 for a 600Mb CD!

So as long as the CD costs under $100 and the unnecessary bloatware is
hard for a warez hacker to strip out, that makes it worth buying the
CD.

Another advantage of having the CD is that it's a backup copy, and you
can keep large stuff (say electronic copies of manuals) on it without
chewing up disk space which is more expensive.

Be interesting to see what happens to software copyright as bandwidth
gets more plentiful, as huge solid state mass storage gets cheaper,
and as information becomes harder to track with widespread crypto, and
nicer anonymous protocols enabled by high bandwidth everywhere come
online.

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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