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[dvd-discuss] "Broadband Ready, content Challenged"



> The broadband industry is starting to complain about a lack of
content.

Rewind to 1976 when Congress removed the copyright registration and
renewal requirements and tacked on 19 years to the copyright duration.

Without those changes, a large volume of published works would have
entered the public domain due to lack of renewal.  The vast majority of
works published prior to 1974 would have entered the public domain by
now.

That would have been a lot of music and movies.

The "big debate" would have been how to convince P2P users to
respect copyright by restricting their file-sharing to the vast amount
of public domain music and movies.   In an environment where vast
amounts of new music and movies entered the public domain every
year, that would have been a very reasonable request, and the
entertainment industry might have won that debate.

Instead, we have the equivalent of a cultural war.   The problem is, in
order for the entertainment industry to "win" the war, it has to win the

hearts and minds of the public.  So far, they are doing exactly the
opposite,  and have left themselves with no exit strategy.  Apparently
their long-term strategy is a permanent war with their own customers,
and that rarely works as a long-term strategy.