Quote:
Originally posted by Macheath
These things would enrich both digital and real life communities. Why not use the internet to exchange musical ideas or enhance that community pub singalong? - Because a company zealously protecting its copyright has crushed the technologies that would allow you to do so. Screw that.
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Huh? Last I checked, Kazaa, eDonkey, and a million Bittorrent sites were still running, and almost all the traffic is in copyrighted material, not copyright-free material. I don't get your "crushed" comment.
What I see, frankly, and I'm not accusing you of this personally, is a lot of people saying "LOOK LOOK, P2P NETWORKS HAVE A LEGITIMATE PURPOSE FOR TRADING COPYRIGHT-FREE MUSIC" while they merrily download copyrighted music.
I think a community augmented with technology like you describe would be neat, but I don't see how technology really augments the experience, it could happen just as easily on a local level. Heck, I've probably got 20 different nationalities of people within a mile of me, I don't need some complex videoconference to meet people from different cultures.
Praising P2P for helping people create is like praising the postal system for the content of the letters they deliver. P2P has potential as an interesting tool, but other than extremely isolated cases, I have yet to see P2P networks used for anything other than taking copyrighted works without permission.