The difference between your examples and the music industry is that buggy whip makers lost because they had an inferior product; who would want a horse-driven carriage when they could have a car? But here, people are still TAKING the music, just without paying. That's the problem.
SOPA isn't the right answer. It tramples on too many fundamental rights for it to be. But to simply say that the music industry should die because the Internet makes piracy easy, that's a bold statement. Within a decade, books will be scanned and turned into eBooks at an incredible rate. It's already happening, but the technology is too slow to make digitizing every book right away possible. But when it does get there, will writers still be encouraged to write? Their books could be so easily pirated. Sure, some might still write. But those who write books on obscure subjects might not find the motivation to write anymore books when their book turns up on a torrent site instantly. And what about when 3D printers and 3D scanners get to a state of mass-consumption? Who will buy furniture anymore when they could scan and build it themselves from pirated blueprints?
There's no easy answer. But to just say "too fucking bad" is wrong.
I doubt quanticle's intent is to say the music industry should die simply because the Internet makes piracy easy. I certainly wouldn't say that. What I would say is the music industry needs to adapt, and find a business model that works in an Internet-enabled world. Instead, they're digging in their heels and trying to "solve" this problem by suing their customers and trying to turn their customer base into felons. Actually, I take it back. The music industry absolutely should die. They're just a bunch of middlemen who are now living in a world where the Internet makes middlemen obsolete. Musical artists absolutely should thrive, and there's ample evidence to suggest that they can thrive in an Internet-enabled world. For a perfect example, just take a look at Jonathan Coulton. There's absolutely no reason to believe that musical artists can't continue to create and sell their music with the Internet. But the music industry itself is a parasite.
>The difference between your examples and the music industry is that buggy whip makers lost because they had an inferior product; who would want a horse-driven carriage when they could have a car?" But here, people are still TAKING the music, just without paying. That's the problem.
I think an argument could be made that the music industry has such a piracy problem (I concede this here, in spite of the music industry constantly reporting greater profit) because it is providing an inferior product, or service.
(I am linking to the discussion.) There was a very interesting GamaSutra article posted here about a month ago, on how Valve sees piracy as a "non-issue": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3155052
The summary from 10,000 feet is that the way to beat the pirates is to give those that buy the product a better service than the pirates do. Making music as difficult to acquire (oy, the fuss they put up about previews and digital distribution!) and use (format shifting, moving your music along with you) is not a a very customer-friendly mod of operation.
I buy my music, but, with BitTorrent, you can listen to the entire song before you buy it. I don't know how much music I passed over because I didn't want to waste money on something that I may or may not like.
But that is my point. SOPA is necessary if you want to defeat piracy (actually even SOPA isn't enough, since you can still lend a friend you physical drive, but I guess they would be ok with that), nothing less will do. Even the DMCA (which is still a horrible piece of crap) isn't nearly enough.
So the deal is: do you want to de facto (but not de jure) allow the unrestricted copying of copyrighted works, or do you want to effectively reduce the internet to a walled garden of a few big companies? No more startups, no more wikipedia, no more youtube, no more wordpress, no more twitter?
And it isn't just that -- no more youtube means no more police brutality videos, no more twitter means no more real-time updates from ordinary people, no more wordpress means that if you want to launch a movement or voice your concern you better pray that the MSM will pick it up.
SOPA isn't the right answer. It tramples on too many fundamental rights for it to be. But to simply say that the music industry should die because the Internet makes piracy easy, that's a bold statement. Within a decade, books will be scanned and turned into eBooks at an incredible rate. It's already happening, but the technology is too slow to make digitizing every book right away possible. But when it does get there, will writers still be encouraged to write? Their books could be so easily pirated. Sure, some might still write. But those who write books on obscure subjects might not find the motivation to write anymore books when their book turns up on a torrent site instantly. And what about when 3D printers and 3D scanners get to a state of mass-consumption? Who will buy furniture anymore when they could scan and build it themselves from pirated blueprints?
There's no easy answer. But to just say "too fucking bad" is wrong.