Tuesday, September 24, 2002

Copyright Hurdles Confront Selling of Music on the Internet. Online services trying to sell music over the Internet face an intellectual property labyrinth paved with administrative quicksand. By Amy Harmon. [New York Times: Technology] The information systems of the music industry grew up with their business models. When the opportunity or challenge of other business models arose, the information systems got in the way. Phone companies suffered (and still suffer) from this problem in a big way, as you can easily find out when something goes wrong with your service or bill. Once again, evolutionary short-sightedness is a better explanation than malice. My occasionally malfunctioning lower back makes me a firm believer in the local hill-climbing model of evolution: no good engineer would have come up with such a problematic design. 12:02:12 AM