Searching for Ron Britvich (part 3) (continued)
Roderick C. Moyes
RB: "Napster is under the category of information, more precisely music… but there's fundamental forms of information out there right now. There's books, music, movies, software. So, I'm of the opinion, that information is free. So that once information is distributed publicly, there is no way to put the Genie back in the bottle. There is no way to restrict its access, or to charge for it. So, in the short term I believe that every book ever made, every song ever written, every movie ever made and every piece of software ever written… basically everything man has ever created that can be digitized will be freely distributed. The copyright has become technologically irrelevant."
RM: "Which is a scary proposition for a lot of people."
RB: "Oh yeah, to a lot of people. I'm not scared at all, but to probably 99 percent of the population it's a really scary thing."
DV: "Yeah, I'm sure it was really scary too when the combustion engine was created to a bunch of horse traders and blacksmiths, but I don't think it's a moral issue at all. I don't think it's a matter of stealing somebody's copyrighted material. Should you violate copyright laws? Laws should be the written form of what's practical for society, and that's not practical. They cease to be practical because they aren't enforceable at all. It's like outlawing an invisible car speeding down the freeway. Sure, you can have a law against it, but try and catch the car… it's not going to happen. Technology makes the law void. Right now people are wasting their time talking about encryption and trying to modify the laws…"
RB: "They just need to realize how implausible what they are attempting to do is."
RM: "So, do you think there is going to be a proliferation of Napster-like sites that do more than just music… like Napster for software, or movies?"
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