The entertainment industry has been on a bit of a crusade this year trying to convince ISPs that either they should feel responsible for the fact that people use their broadband connections to share unauthorized content. It started with
NBC Universal arguing that ISPs somehow bore the responsibility for policing their networks for others' content. It's an odd argument, because most ISPs will admit (in a quiet moment) that unauthorized file sharing had been one of the biggest drivers in convincing people to switch from dialup to broadband. Furthermore, considering that there
are some
enlightened companies who realize that having your best fans promote and distribute your content can be good for business, it's impossible for ISPs to know whether or not the content being passed around is being done so with or without the approval of the content holder. In fact, that can lead to situations where content that producers are
happy having shared gets taken down against their will.
No matter, though, as the entertainment industry has already convinced
the government that its outdated business model needs to be protected, now it's trying to convince other industries that they, too, spend their own resources to protect another industry's dying business model. The MPAA's Dan Glickman, who has had trouble understanding basic economics
before, is now trying to
convince various ISPs that it's their job to protect the entertainment industry's business model. Why? About the only argument he can come up with is that all that unauthorized content is a bandwidth glut: "more and more they're finding their networks crowded with infringed material, bandwidth space being crowded out." That sounds nice, other than the fact that
it's not true. So far, not a single prediction that the entertainment industry has made about unauthorized file sharing has come true -- and each step they take seems to make things worse. Why would another, totally separate industry, buy into the argument that it, too, needs to drag itself down to protect someone else's dying business model?