Love on a two way street

As far as Patricia Santangelo is concerned the two way street means they're catching her coming, and going. She's the first victim in the highly publicized music industry's lawsuit for file sharing. Allegedly they found her actively sharing 1700 songs but out of the kindness of their hearts are only charging her for 8. Lest you believe that it's a good deal, by the time all the lawyer fees and 'dues' are paid she's staring at a whopper of a bill: $250,000. Ouch.

She claims ignorance about the use of file sharing programs but (un)lucky for her the children seem to be quite adept. Over the course of several years the kiddos managed to build quite an impressive directory of their favorite songs, no doubt uploaded to the other device mom knows nothing about but still purchased: the IPOD. Seems as though they're hanging this lady out to dry in an effort to scare everyone else by making an example of her for other parents, not the children. The music industry is well aware of the fact that somewhere near 90% of all music files swapped with the peer-to-peer software is done by minors. Cash poor and likely outside the scope of lawsuits the music industry is targeting the parents as opposed to the actual violators. What to do?

Screaming History

Back in the day there was no Blockbuster video store. The horror. We had to schlep to the movie theater and buy the outrageously priced goodies set at eye level for the hordes of four-footers in line to watch Rocky. As the digital age came alive suddenly VHS was all the rage where you could purchase the machine and rent movies to see in the comfort of your own home. I can still remember the draped off 'back room' where the more discerning movie viewer could quickly grab a movie with those cheesy titles (I'll make one up here: Suck-Cess) and head for checkout when the coast was clear. Of particular interest was watching the sheepish look on their faces while I deliberately asked if they found anything good while behind them in line. Nyuk nyuk. I digress. When the VHS came out Hollywood screamed blue murder. "It's the cancellation of our artistic license" and "We're going to stop producing movies as this will kill the industry." Eventually of course the rentals far outweighed the take during the time it was in the actual theater and along with other merchandising revolutionized the music industry with dollar signs from Here to Eternity.

After this the online movie rental began getting traction and once again we were hit with the screams of theft, industry decimation, and the like. Soon enough the ever resistant to change movie folks decided to capitalize (instead of whine) on the new format and set up NetFlix and other websites so potential viewers could pick and choose and have the movies delivered by mail. Sweet. Although they have to be forced to change at each new interval the music industry is an example of how to properly roll with punches. I'm looking forward to their answer to downloadable movies which is the next phase we're entering into now. After the shrieks we'll likely have a user-friendly interaction that's mutually beneficial as all free market enterprises end up being.

Impaired Vision

I've used the entertainment industry as only one example though there are many of entire industries remaining competitive in a rapidly changing market. Compare them to the hyper-litigious Music folks who haven't done a damn thing but complain about immoral file-sharers and bankrupt some poor mother...for starters. Instead of brainstorming and having the internet add to their bottom line they've decided to use overpriced and overpopulated lawyers to scare us into submission. This will fail.
Already there are bands breaking the traditional role of being subjugated by record labels and EMI by offering their music free of charge, sometimes entire albums. Some bands request pay if/what you are able. There's a giant article
here with an introduction stating 'Embrace digital or die, EMI told.' Also "Free can work for new bands, too. It is already two years since Arctic Monkeys were propelled into music history by a fanbase that had discovered their music through illegal file sharing. With nothing to lose, they embraced free music distribution via platforms such as MySpace and eventually found a way to sell records too."
"I want the people to own the music and the artists to own the copyright. Why let a record company get in the way of the music?" says Tim Burgess, the Charlatans' lead singer. The recommendation best suited to the collective music industry is to get someone under 20 on B.O.D. and explain how things work these days. Or talk to your own kids and let them create a plan for distribution they believe will work, or has worked, in their experience.

Part of the process in a court of law is proving what you allege actually took place. The only way I know to track an individual user is by their MAC address and it must be provided by the ISP. Even if they do hand it over what's to say that one didn't buy that computer used? Perhaps it had that material on it before they ever even opened Solitaire? On top of this there is bandwidth stealing, online electronic impersonation, wrongly represented file-sharing attributes, and the list goes on. Seems hard to believe that Ms. Santangelo had a digital rights lawyer represent her as any one of the above could have been in play if indeed her original story is authentic.

For the author here the whole brouhaha is inconsequential as I have never before been behind the movie rental curtain, never received ripped music, and have never tossed off to anything, ever.