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Adapt to New Technology or Die
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that in a recent speech to fellow stationers and newspaper makers, Rupert Murdoch has stated that the 'newspaper industry needs to embrace the technological revolution of the Internet, MP3 players, laptops and mobile phones or face extinction.'"
...but accepting theft is another.
There is a big difference between adapting to new markets and technology and allowing existing ones to be pilfered by thieves.
While the RIAA and MPAA certainly make themselves look stupid when they sue grandma's for downloading mp3s, they are simply trying to protect and existing marketplace.
It's no different than a shop owner calling the cops when somebody robs them at gun point. Do we expect the shop owner to adapt to robbery? No. We expect law enforcement to prevent that robbery and punish those who are caught after the fact.
Obviously there are lots of new market opportunities created by technology. MP3s have certainly changed the way we listen to music. But just as a gun makes it easier to rob a bank, mpeg compression makes it easier to share near full quality music with millions of people.
The industry IS slowly changing. They are investing massive amounts of money in DRM which will allow them to participate in the emerging markets created by compression schemes like MP3. Them trying to stop file sharers from distributing copyrighted material to millions of people illegally is a separate and independent issue.