The Internet is a living breathing Hydra that loves stuff for free

 

The RIAA and the old guard of major film houses have lashed out and begun a war with the internet. The Pirate Bay, Napster, and Megaupload are the most recent casualties. Obviously this is all about money. The truth being that these industries see their hold weakening with the advancement of the internet and P2P technologies. The moment that sony debuted CD-R and DVD-R technology the war began, and truthfully the music and film industries don’t stand a chance if they continue to fight the evil internet as they do today.

Megaupload owner Kim Schmitz was arrested early this year and had his many riches reclaimed by the music industry. The problem is that doing what Schmitz did isn’t very hard. In fact many other upload sites have sprung up in its place. The take-down of Megaupload was a major blow just like when Hercules cut off the heads of the Hydra…till he realized, “damn two heads grow back for every head I cut…Damnit.”This is the same issue. The Internet is a living breathing Hydra that loves stuff for free.

This our current state. But just as the Hydra grows more heads to better battle it’s foe, so too has the Internet. Looking down the road, ten or less years, I prophesize a world without paid TV services, no cell phone services, and no broadband fees. I see a world saturated by free wifi waves. Wifi will be just like FM and AM radio.

The internet will be so intertwined into society that paying for internet will seem archaic. If you notice the move of HBO, Netflix, and Hulu to stream their shows; they are all trying to make an internet foothold for themselves. Either TV will be all be free or each channel will offer their service al a cartevia the internet. Soon enough all of these services will be free because they wont have a way to keep the content safe.

Intellectual property owners sorry to tell you but your content is not safe in the hands of the internet. Many would argue that cyber crimes are not crimes at all; similar to jay walking. They are crimes with victims, and crimes that can cause severe financial losses. I believe that the film and music industry will see that fighting the flow of protected content to the internet for free is like fighting a forest fire with a smokey the bear costume on with a bucket of water. There is no stopping it. Like some asian guy said in a movie, “be like the river and flow around the rock.” To survive you have to evolve. Instead of trying to fight against the rushing water the industry will use the number of once illegal downloads to advertise their artist and use those numbers to determine the advertising dollars they are worth. They will adapt or die.


Even now we can see the change happening. Android phones can make calls exclusively over wifi, VOIP, vonage, and the like. Youtube has commissioned many original content channels. The Pirate Bay was supposedly shut down three years ago and continues to move from country to country continuing their P2P service. So what does that mean? Imagine the next smash hit Mad Men Oscar Award winning series premiering exclusively on Youtube. NBA, NFL, and MLB on youtube or will our next televisions just be chrome browsers?…its not that crazy. All that needs to happen is an increase of national broadband speeds and our government to continue to seek national wifi networks. Currently the US average broadband speed is 5.1 mbps. In 2010 it was 1mbps. So in just two years we increased our broadband five fold. So in ten years…i mean i’m just saying though, 2022 100mbps easy.When our internet is fast enough to carry all of our data, entertainment, and unfortunate pornographic needs we will be in a free world. May 2, 2012…get your two bunnies out and quote me.

– WodOffPooH