Tumbclio

We can’t protest every similar bill with the same force. Eventually, our audiences will tire of calling their senators for whatever we’re asking them to protest this time. Eventually, we will lose. Such ridiculous, destructive bills should never even pass committee review, but we’re not addressing the real problem: the MPAA’s buying power in Congress. This is a campaign finance problem.

The failure of the entertainment industry—and, consequently, the legislators who are trying to help them out—to understand their problem is because of an even more fundamental misunderstanding about the products they are selling. They believe they are selling music and movies, discrete pieces of entertainment. But since the advent of the compact disc and DVD, the entertainment industry has been selling data—and data is inherently fluid and leaky. If you cannot control the way you sell and distribute your data, you are going to suffer from leaks, and no legislative clubs are going to plug those leaks.