<\/a><\/p>\n \nLike many other large publications, Le Monde<\/i><\/a> publishes editorials, which summarize issues poorly and inconsistently. Their take on file sharing<\/a> initially seems balanced, but this balance is, in fact, based on false assumptions.\n<\/p>\n \nIn Le Monde’s world, the record companies are selling a product at too high a price, and this high price justifies “stealing.” Record companies need to offer cheaper options, and music listeners need to understand that, without pay, artists won’t produce music. That’s a good summary if you assume that the only way we can ever distribute music is on physical medium like CDs. If you’ve ever handled an MP3 file (and there are at least 60 million Americans who have), you know that is a terribly weak assumption.\n<\/p>\n \nThe issue is that the record companies are both the producers and distributors of content. Sure, the stores aren’t called “Sony Music” or “BMI,” but they just as well might be. When Napster asked the major labels for a reasonably-priced license to make their service legal, the labels flatly refused and promised Congress they were “working on a comparable solution.” Unsurprisingly, we’re still waiting for this comparable solution.\n<\/p>\n \nToday, we have the technology to cheaply deliver any piece of music ever recorded to your car, stereo, or portable music player within seconds (remember the old Qwest commercials?). Why isn’t it happening? Is it because no business model exists that can provide this solution while ensuring that artists make a decent living? Or is it because a handful of large dinosaurs are trying to protect their cartel-level margins on music sales by artificially limiting the available means of distribution?\n<\/p>\n \nWe shouldn’t protect the old against the new. We need to architect our legal framework to provide incentive for innovation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like many other large publications, Le Monde publishes editorials, which summarize issues poorly and inconsistently. Their take on file sharing initially seems balanced, but this balance is, in fact, based on false assumptions. In Le Monde’s world, the record companies are selling a product at too high a price, and this high price justifies “stealing.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ben\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}