It looks obvious

When I first read this morning about the PERFORM Act of 2006 (Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music) at Fred Wilson’s blog I was sure he got it wrong. So I decided to give it another check.

Is something wrong with a low that intend to protect creative work? Obviously not! And this is, according to the law sponsor - Senator Dianne Feinstein, the intention of this act :

“The need to protect creative works has been an important principle recognized in our country since its inception.
The founding fathers accurately understood the importance of intellectual property by including protective language in our Constitution, and in doing so they established a principle that would stand the test of time.
However, they could not have predicted that the path of innovation would eventually produce the amazing new technologies that we now take for granted.”

So what is the problem? The problem is that the proposed law has nothing to do with protection of creative work and has everything to do with protection of industry that refuses to change. The problem is that behind the nice wording and the fog of the slogan this act is simple extortion:

“The bill would place limits on the types of recording devices cable, Internet and satellite providers may offer, IF they want to enjoy the benefit of a government license.
If, however, a company wants to offer new technologies that allow for manipulation of music so that a consumer may create their own music libraries, similar to a downloading service, they may. There is nothing in this bill prohibiting the use or creation of new technologies the company would simply lose the benefit of a government license.”

Therefore if such technology, which its legality isn’t disputed by the act, created for a fare use by consumers who purchase the music – it will lose its government license.  

But Fred Wilson was absolutely correct when he wrote:

But one thing is for sure. You can’t put digital technology back in the box and as much as the RIAA and our goverment may try, the rules of the analog world cannot and will not be used to hold back the innovation unleashed by digital technology.

The extortions and the lawsuits will not help RIAA now, as the Terror didn’t help the Luddites .  

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