Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Dispatches from the Napster and Gnutella front

Author:Robert Cassidy
Posted:4/21/2000; 11:31:47 AM
Topic:Dispatches from the Napster and Gnutella front
Msg #:16513 (In response to 16501)
Prev/Next:16512 / 16514

Or in more abstracted terms, it's because the legal alternative is also prohibited to them, but with much stricter enforcement.

Yes, exactly.

The fact that alcohol is recognized as a legal substance provides an enormous amount of infrastructure to call into play in it's enforcement. It's not just the bouncer at the club, but liquor stores, distributors, and producers themselves. They all have mandated to them a common goal of enforcing the 21 age limit. Like a pyramid, you push hard enough on the top and that force will be distributed to the bottom at a magnitude that will be felt. It's the goal hoped for with handguns and tobacco right now.

Pot is illegal. There's no infrastructure. It's like pushing water.

There's also a disconnect between the young people that see music as entertainment (which is reinforced by the artists) and the RIAA middlemen which see it as a business. Only when the RIAA takes a more moderate position in this will we see a positive outcome - that is, the RIAA will need to give something to the consumer (MP3 approved content) and something to the artist (the ability to influence distribution of artwork - per song acquisition). As you say, work with the tools rather than against them.

RIAA should focus on building that infrastructure themselves - but that requires handing some control away.

One last observation, it's not through legislation that this mechanism works, rather through litigation. It's why I think patents are so popular now as they lay the framework on which to build a lawsuit. With alcohol, the ability to hold the bartender responsible through litigation for an underage drinkers actions is very compelling... Attorneys are filling in for the failures of a representative government and deliberately enacting change at a national level now.

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