P2P Rob set to fight the copyright robber barons

Adam Turner
Thursday, 01 February 2007 09:12

Opinion and Analysis

By counter-suing the Recording Industry Association of America over music piracy charges, sixteen year old Robert Santangelo is set to join DVD Jon as a champion of the people in the digital age.

Like DVD Jon - the Norwegian reverse engineering specialist best known for cracking the encryption on DVDs at the tender age of 15 - P2P Rob will become a symbol of a greater struggle. The struggle against a corporate culture that views consumers as criminals to be hounded, sued and spied upon.

The content industry in bogged down in a war it can not win. It is fighting for the hearts, minds and wallets of the people, but suing children and old ladies will see it lose the biggest battle of all - public opinion.

They've tried every trick in the book and continually failed. Sony's music label was busted hiding spyware on people's computers. The RIAA has raided homes and ISPs in search of pirates. The United States Department of Justice has even made unsubstantiated claims that piracy funds terrorism. Were this the 1950s, someone would have labelled pirates as communists by now.

Piracy is still alive and well because all these acts have failed to convince the public that paying for content is a better option. If all the time and money wasted harassing the P2P Robs and DVD Jons of the world was spent on improving legitimate download services, we'd be well on the way to solving the problem.

The content industry needs to work with its customers, not against them. People will do they right thing if you give them what they consider a good service at a good price - just look at the success of iTunes. By fighting P2P Rob, the copyright robber barons are just digging their own graves.