不过,当人们眼前只看到钱的时候,他们的智商似乎就会下降几个档次,看不到解决问题的方法了.只会用一次起诉成百上千个下载者这样的笨办法来吓唬人.有钱的大老板啊,你们什么时候才能变聪明一点呢?

很少真正在乎版权的中国人也许不会在意这个在西方人看来是很疯狂的消息－－Sony BMG和英国的ISP PlayLouder达成的协议。 英国的PlayLouder 自封为世界上第一家也是唯一一家MSP，也就是Music Service Provider。协议达成后，在PlayLouder的用户在PlayLouder的网络内，被授权可以任意的分享Sony BMG的所有音乐作品，以任何的格式，任何的方式分享，包括现在被搞音乐和电影的大老板们最痛恨的P2P。

Had to crank out a story on tight deadline about digital music rights in Europe: 2 states in EU ease sales of songs over Internet

The lesson is to find a good-enough approach to content protection that is easy, convenient and non-annoying to most people, and then accept that there will be some leakage. Most consumers see the value in paying for something of guaranteed quality and legality, as long as you don't treat them like potential criminals. And the minority of others, who are willing to take the risks and go to the trouble of finding the pirated versions? Well, they probably weren't your best market anyway.

"If this is the chief benefit of [the DMCA] in the post-Darknet world, it is important that policy-makers discuss the costs and benefits of this approach (I think it lends itself to anti-competitive cartel behavior), rather than continuing to believe that [DRM is] chiefly good for stopping digital infringements by individuals." (hyperlink, mine)

Unless all of the above are true, then the amount of DRM on a song is irrelevant to how hard or easy it is to get a copy without DRM on it. There are ways to reduce downloading -- for example, offering attractive services to high-downloader populations (like college kids). But DRM can't reduce the amount of downloading that people who want to download will undertake. Link (via Waxy)

而美国唱片工业协会（RIAA）作为日趋衰败的影视娱乐业代表，在今年的6月25日宣布将要对蓬勃发展的P2P（Peer to peer）文件共享用户提起诉讼，时间就在接下来的数周之内，截至目前已经有900多位人士收到了来自法院的传票，RIAA通过用户的ISP强制索取了用户的联系方式和IP地址，这一孤注一掷的行为使得大众极为愤怒，导致了网上网下嘘声一片。

The concept is simple: the music industry forms a collecting society, which then offers file-sharing music fans the opportunity to "get legit" in exchange for a reasonable regular payment, say $5 per month. So long as they pay, the fans are free to keep doing what they are going to do anyway—share the music they love using whatever software they like on whatever computer platform they prefer—without fear of lawsuits. The money collected gets divided among rights-holders based on the popularity of their music. In exchange, file-sharing music fans will be free to download whatever they like, using whatever software works best for them. The more people share, the more money goes to rights-holders. The more competition in applications, the more rapid the innovation and improvement. The more freedom to fans to publish what they care about, the deeper the catalog.

Currently, the population of the UK is 60.4 million. Now, assuming similar broadband growth in the UK as in the US (this is untrue, as the US has been rather slow, but let抯 just use that as a simple figure for the moment), that would mean ?carry the one???500m a year from the US alone (that抯 2.6 BILLION according to the Universal Currency Converter).

This is, however, the first clever move by the intellectual property rights’ industry in a long time. As for it being a good move or not, well, what do we really think? I’m still contemplating.

really do think subscription music is an idea whose time has come, because let's face it, file sharing isn't going to go away.

"The BPI welcomes the innovative thinking which has gone into the creation of Playlouder MSP and we give it our full support."

The deal is also a clear indication of Sony BMG's progressive position within the constantly evolving digital music world and shows that the major is at the forefront in identifying and supporting compelling new business models in the digital music market...."

PLMSP has agreed to pay music rights owners a proportion of broadband subscription revenues paid by subscribers, subject to an agreed minimum per subscriber per month.

More, this is a chance for the labels to extract themselves from the unsustainable quicksand they've sunk up to their necks in: suing their customers by the thousands in the hopes that some day, with enough lawsuits, the music-buying public will finally see the light and go back to the malls.

Now that the Supreme Court has spoken in Grokster, many are eager to know what happens next. Not what’s next for Grokster and Streamcast. They are yesterday’s news, doomed to be overwhelmed by phalanxes of music industry lawyers. No, the question is what will happen to BitTorrent, the next-generation filesharing program that one study claims now accounts for the majority of file sharing traffic and 35% of all Internet traffic.

It's tempting to see the U.S. Supreme Court's Grokster decision as technology's loss and copyright's gain, but that analysis misses the mark. In fact, despite having just been handed a powerful new tool to prop up a tottering business model, the entertainment industry could well wind up the biggest loser.

The entertainment industry won the Grokster case. But the narrow decision leaves open the possibility that other peer-to-peer services could be legal.