[wos] End of resistance against DRM?

[Felix Stalder]

On Saturday, 15. April 2006 10:44, Juergen Fenn wrote:
> Felix Stalder <felix at openflows.org> writes:
> >> mabe it would be interesting to have a discussion between lessig and the
> >> swedish pirates of piratpyran here.
> >
> > I don't think that would be productive. I have a suspicion, I already
> > know what Lessig would say: "I would support you if we were not in the
> > real world, where we have to make reasonable arguments, otherwise we give
> > our enemies the amunition to shoot us down."
>
> Not exactly wrong.

I guess it depends how you see social change happening. If you believe, like 
any self-respecting lawyer, that it's the law that determines social 
development, then, indeed, we need to do everything we can to appease those 
who make laws. However, if you think that laws reflect social behaviours then 
we need to support intersting new developments, see what's possible, and 
worry later if that is legal. If Fanning had asked a lawyer first before 
relasing Napster, nothing would have happened. Sure, the RIAA would not 
started to sue thousands of people, but would that really have been a better 
course of events?

Of course, this is not an 'either-or', but rather a mutual shaping of law and 
society, so the perhaps it's more a question of tactics and personal 
perferences.

Felix








----http://felix.openflows.org------------------------------ out now:
*|Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society. Polity, 2006 
*|Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks. Ed. Futura/Revolver, 2005