Around the Net

Column: Silicon Valley Should Be Ashamed To Violate Copyright Law

In his column today, writer Adam Lashinsky gives Silicon Valley a tongue-lashing for disregarding and disrespecting copyright law. He argues that the incredible performance of Internet sites like Google and YouTube is predicated on content that belongs to someone else.

"Performance metrics that businesspeople elsewhere wouldn't recognize are coin of the realm [in Silicon Valley]," Lashinsky writes, adding, "it's an obnoxious attitude that nevertheless undoubtedly fuels a good deal of the tech industry's outsized success."

That's one way of looking at it, but like it or not, media is changing. If revolutionary enablers like YouTube and Napster get shut down, new ones based in foreign countries--where U.S. copyright doesn't apply--will sprout up. Soon, Silicon Valley will lag behind the rest of the world in Internet development.

And, as terrific digital download stores like Apple's iTunes are, let's not forget that piracy still trumps legal downloading by a huge margin around the world. Consumers don't want to pay for content--though they have shown a willingness to accept non-intrusive advertising.

Lashinsky argues that a laissez-faire attitude about copyright isn't fair to copyright owners. Of course it isn't, but neither is life, or business for that matter. Inevitably, someone gets left behind in the name of progress. And if that means we're heading toward a decentralization of power, wealth and influence in the entertainment industry, so be it. The world might be better off without celebrity culture.

Read the whole story at Fortune.com »

Next story loading loading..