A great opening essay, Jack.
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Whatever file sharing appears to be right now the ultimate evolution of peer-to-peer will be the liberation of both the consumer and the artist from the media companies - it’s the fundamental result of file sharing.
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Ditto on that. P2P (and personal computing in general) has been about ‘consumer’ empowerment all along. However granted we take it today, the suddenly emerged possibility for any non-technical person with Internet connection to act as a worldwide distributor for high-quality digital content is an amazing technical achievement with no historical comparison. It is something to celebrate and embrace, not to suppress or stifle.
Surely the focus has so far been very much on consumer, content and distribution – artists have mostly followed the rapid developments from the sidelines. But these are early days; we have only three years of P2P behind us. By embracing the movement and co-operating with the (nowadays numerous) P2P developers the artists should have no problem taking their rightful place in the new digital luxury ecology during the next three years.
- tg
