This is a smart three-minute video that I highly recommend, showing how Google and Apple treat the music industry like an ugly step-child. Google and Apple’s insouciance about the music industry’s woes is especially demonstrated by all the help Google and Apple give you to do more with your pirated tunes. Googapple are, so far as we can tell anyway, agnostic as to whether the music was legally purchased or not. Remember all those people that stole music via Napster/Kazaa and forwent buying CDs in 1999-2004 … when all you could really do readily with the illegal file is play it through cruddy speakers? Just think of how much more they are probably stealing *now* that they have iPods, iTunes, and the new Google Music service which is supposed to scan users’ hard drives and make that music available to the user anywhere from the cloud!
For background on the Google Music service plan rumors, see this from TechCrunch. (Hint: Net Neutrality in the cross-hairs).
Just so I am not accused of posing problems only and no solutions: piracy is a technological problem and must have a technological solution. We know how to find this solution: we must innovate. Technological innovation. So far, the powers that be have not even begun to innovate. Because of parochial, short-sighted interests, all the solutions which have been grasped at have involved either giving up on ownership or giving up on copyright law or sometimes both.
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