RIAA/MPAA: the Greatest Threat To Tech Innovation

TAGmclaren writes "The Harvard Business Review is running an article stating that it's not India or China that are the greatest threat to technological innovation happening in America. Rather, it's the 'big content' players, particularly the movie and music industry. From the article: 'the Big Content players do not understand technology, and never have. Rather than see it as an opportunity to reach new audiences, technology has always been a threat to them. Example after example abounds of this attitude; whether it was the VCR which was "to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone" as famed movie industry lobbyist Jack Valenti put it at a congressional hearing, or MP3 technology, which they tried to sue out of existence.'"

Comments

April 1st again?

[brit74]

What a retarded premise. So what: you can't get your music and movies for free? What "tech innovation" have they stopped? The super-duper holograph audio/video machine? Even the examples in the story are pathetically weak - the RIAA tried to eliminate the MP3 - guess what? The MP3 still exists, and even if it didn't, some audio-compression format would have to exist. And spotify already has a deal with the record companies in the US (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20040498-17.html). Sorry, but the two items in the summary are just an unnatural mashup of two things that Slashdotters care about: tech innovation and hating the RIAA/MPAA. For some reason (probably their rage against the RIAA/MPAA and the RIAA/MPAA's attack on "getting free entertainment") the commenters can't see past the fact that the argument doesn't actually make sense. Is this April 1st again or something?

Re:time for copyleft for music

[countertrolling]

Anarchy is all there is. Everything else needs to be propped up with heavy weaponry. And that's also very expense, and really a waste of money. Copyleft is the same bullshit as copyright.. It just shifts the power.. It has to be eliminated.. Time to turn the weapons on those who wield them.