Now there’s a gloomy statement if I ever heard one.

It’s almost as good as the popular 1970s litania
“By the year 2000, all oil reserves will run dry and everbody will starve because the world is overpopulated and we’ll be in a new Ice Age, and… and…!”

So here we are in 2005, and the industries are toppling like dominoes before the ruthless onslaught of the Internet… every evil citizen is making his own pirated CDs, DVDs, medicines, cars, household appliances… right?

And when, exactly, are we going to have the time to copy all that stuff?

The scaremongers seem to forget a very strong argument for buying non-pirated stuff: CONVENIENCE.
Even if we could go back to the Stone Age and build everything we wanted/needed ourselves, it would be less CONVENIENT.
Downloading music over the Internet is popular not because it’s evil, but because it is CONVENIENT.
So try and make legal distribution more CONVENIENT.

But of course, improving old distribution models is a lot of work and changing your old routines… and that’s not CONVENIENT. How much more CONVENIENT to scare, threaten and alienate the consumers instead.

-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com

As David Dawson points out, the UK Government has revived its early interest (does anyone else remember Cool Britannia?) in the “Creative Industries” and their value to this country. That value is, of course, far more than just economic,…

The BBC’s Matt Locke has written a great report on yesterday’s meeting on copyright in the UK that was held by a minister who is reported to have called for extending copyright on performances to the performer’s life plus one hundred years. Adam Singer…