META-TOPIC: NAPSTER, TIVO, AND THE FUTURE
All the kewlies are talking about Napster. All the power geeks have TiVo. It seems no matter how hard I try, I just can’t keep up. I don’t do Napster, not for any ethical reasons, particularly, but because the only time I have decent access to the net is at work, and I don’t think the Firm would look kindly on me using their bandwidth to download pirated MP3s. Oh yeah, did I mention that for someone who is on the net all the time, I have a miserable connection from my apartment? It’s true. Crappy wiring means I’m not even getting the full 56 out of my modem. Anyway, since I’m not playing with all the kewl technology, I haven’t really spent a lot of time thinking about what these things mean to the future of intellectual property. Sure, I’ve spent some time thinking about how Lars is an irritating old fart and how I’d like to mirror the whole Mettalica catalogue from an .fi account just to spite him, but haven’t we all? Anyway, Lance’s current Life Serial (“Not If But When”) woke me up. Now on the one hand, as an aspiring “entertaining non-tangible product” creator I’m concerned about losing control over my own work… not that I really have any control over it in the first place, but further disempowerment of artists and other creators isn’t a good thing. On the other hand, when he described the inevitable future of TiVo-like appliances, all I could think was “I WANT!!!” It’s terrible. As a creator I want some control over my creations, but as a consumer I WANT IT ALL! I’ve been promised television on command for years – everything ever created at the touch of a button whenever I want to see it… That, plus a decentralized “screw the man” distribution model just brings out my green eyed rebel media glutton in a big honkin’ way. The truth is, I don’t want to screw artists out of any compensation, but I also don’t want to pay a million dollars a year for my entertainment feed… and I don’t want to think about the ethics of this whole thing… I just want it all, is that so wrong? damn your thought provoking ways, Lance!
related:
tvminder.com
The unofficial TiVo Hackers Site