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Charlie Demerjian: "The problem with forced evolution is that it tends to work. The RIAA made the networks evolve technically, from a relatively incocous MP3 network to the file sharing network from hell. There is nothing you can't get anymore, and there is no one to stop it. If they came up with a tool, unlikely as that may be, there is no place to implement it."
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Mr. Demerjian's brief history of p2p is a good sum-up of developments so far. In retrospect, the closing of Napster was indeed the crucial mistake for the RIAA. They could have bought it with a fairly small sum of money (just enough to make the venture capitalists happy) and let it run, buying themselves time to figure out how to make a business out of it. That would have left them with a good control over the music consuming masses and a front seat on the technological evolution. Now it is too late; all they can do is to try to disturb the inevitable evolution with bullying and corruptive measures, with no real chances to regain the control they once had.
Thanks again for a great digest, Jack.
- tg
