JetScootr's Journal: On Darwin, Gutenberg, the RIAA and MP3.COM

Much has been made of Vivendi (or CNet's ) decision to scuttle the contents of the MP3.COM archive when it is sold to CNet. Some claim it a great loss, CNet says they don't have the space, etc. One must examine the Darwinian aspects of the event and its environment to understand why this decision is absolutely necessary for the survival of Download.com, MP3.com's eventual destination.
Darwin tells us that we only survived because some ancient hominid realized that pointy hand-held rocks equal sharp fangs when applied in the correct manner. Further, some of those hominids themselves failed Darwin's challenge when other hominids trumped the pointy hand-held rock with a pointy hurled rock.
Time went by, and the hominds (Gutenberg, to be exact) invented an information revolution with the invention of the printing press. Unloosing data in this way attacked the very foundations of the existing economic system. Trade secrets became public knowledge; warezs that had once been valuable proprietary products became cheap commodities. And ultimately, laws were created that established the public commons, copyrights and patents to protect the new economic system from chaos. It should be noted, however, that the new economies had to win the war before legal protections were put in place. Power had to shift from the old to the new.
Where ... Oh, yes, the RIAA and the information revolution. Not that one, the current one. We are beginning to see the same effect here, as other more able writers have explained before. This is not news to any of us, by now. The RIAA is hurling their pointy lawyers at their enemies. Darwin's theory is still in effect, however. Other hominids have invented pointy sticks that can be thrown much farther, in the form of globe-spanning information sharing.
Which brings us to MP3.com's huge pile of pointy sticks. The RIAA's pointy lawyers are of course still potent weapons, and can be used if any of the MP3 pile is not solidly encased in the modern era's legal protections. The quest to vet one million files for hidden pointy rocks is both impractical, and pointless. Since CNet has not had control of the process of obtaining the mp3's, CNet can not be sure that legal accountability has been correctly assigned to the uploader. In all likelihood, the pointy sticks are all of different shapes and sizes, having been uploaded under a set of rules that evolved over time. This increasing risk of liability, along with the RIAA's rabid rampaging, may have been a factor in the decision to sell mp3.com in the first place.
So the hominids evolve a little bit, and invent a new method of making RIAA-killing pointy sticks. But the ones already in place are at risk; they were not made correctly. The RIAA's sharp pointy lawyers may be able to use them against the new owner of mp3.com. Destroying mp3.com, whether the old or the new, would be a key victory in the RIAA's war to prevent the information revolution from moving forward. As has been said elsewhere, this database is the largest collection of digital works ever assembled. Destroying it would be akin to the burning of the Library of Alexandria. And it would assure the RIAA of considerable more time to evolve a better pointy rock.
By emptying the database preemptively, CNet assures that the new pointy-stick-making method (New upload procedures and legal waivers) will assure that the next one million works will be proof against the RIAA's attacks. Darwin will rule, mp3.com will survive, and the RIAA will be one step closer to extinction..