James Delahunty
23 Jan 2005 14:26
According to a panel of industry experts, P2P Networks are not just here to stay, but will also be exploited by media firms who will look for any possible way to make money from them. Once the current legal battle surrounding P2P comes to an end, firms will be very keen to try and make money from P2P technology. Since the closure of Napster, the entertainment industry has been fearing P2P networks and blaming them for falling global sales. The entertainment industry in the United States is currently dragging Grokster and StreamCast through courts trying to make their P2P networks illegal.
However, so far they have had no luck. In August 2004, the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Grokster and StreamCast. The court said that the case is too similar to the 1980s VCR battle. "Old media always tries to stop new media", said Michael Weiss, president of StreamCast Networks, "When they can't stop it, they try to control it. Then they figure out how to make money and they always make a lot of money." If you look back to the 1980's VCR case, you will see that when the Movie Industry realised they couldn't stop the technology, they decided to work on a way to make money from it, and they did. Slowly as firms look over the evil image P2P networks have been given and look at the potential of them, especially how quickly they can distribute content, they will start to plot ways to get their share of money from it.
Source:
BBC News