Smart Mobs
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The big battle coming over the future of smart mobs concerns media cartels and government agencies (who) are seeking to reimpose the regime of the broadcast era in which the customers of technology will be deprived of the power to create and left only with the power to consume. That power struggle is what the battles over file-sharing, copy protection, regulation of the radio spectrum are about. | | Are the populations of tomorrow going to be users, like the PC owners and website creators who turned technology to widespread innovation? Or will they be consumers, constrained from innovation and locked into the technology and business models of the most powerful entrenched interests? |  |
This sums up EXACTLY how I feel about this issue (Digital Rights Management, Peer To Peer File Sharing, Copyright, Media Monopolies, etc.) I made similar comments to a friend over the phone weeks ago. I don't want to be a Media serf in a new age of Feudalism! Do you?
Remember this when the government wants to make illegal all technologies that don't feature rock solid content protection mechanisms (like all open source projects which can be hacked to disable such features because the code is freely available.)
Middlemen are ok, they contribute value by promotion and distribution, but it is always better to be a CREATOR than a distributor or a consumer. Many creators are often too absorbed with the creative process to be able to play the politics of profiting (or even simply protecting their own creations) from the distribution process. Hence they are open to exploitation by middlemen who don't have creative skills but do have political skills to capitalize someone else's creation. Middlemen should take their fair share and not unfairly exploit the creators who produce the products they profit from. Creators should either develop the skills to promote and distribute their own products, or else choose carefully what kind of distribution contracts they sign themselves up for. If greed and ambition are part of the equation, then you get the situation we have today.
Welcome to the Palladium
A Couple of Bob's Dire Predictions Come True
6:24:37 PM 
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