The Internet has ushered in an age of sharing, but old businesses do not believe it.
Napster was a big phenomenon. Millions of young and old teenagers joined Napster in order to exchange music of all kinds - for FREE. The record industry was alarmed and sued Napster. They won. Now, Napster may no longer allow the free sharing of music.
IBM seeing an opportunity, developed the Electronic Media Management System (EMMS). This system allows a user to play music a limited number of times. For further playing, the user must pay.
But EMMS will not work for the same reason software control did not work: it annoyed customers. Besides, Internet sharing will not go away. Sites are popping up all over to replace Napster. A good example is Aimster. Aimster allows file sharing, but it is different from Napster in one big way: There is no central control. Transfers occur among the individual sites in the network. The site is not subject to legal challenge.
Aimster uses instant messaging technology. Users may search and transfer files from members of the network. Files in AOL, Gnutella and other networks may also be accessed. Since last August, Aimster has attracted 2.5 million users.
Sharing can not be stopped. As Jon Katz, of Slashdot.org says:
"Theoretically, file-sharing approaches could go beyond shopping to stimulate interest in education, business, even politics, if the music experience is any indicator. And it sure ought to be."
Sharing is here to stay. The Internet encourages sharing. This means that the old intellectual property approach is passe. We can not think of music, books, and software as property to be bought and sold. The registration and patent systems are becoming ineffective. It takes years to get a patent for something that may change in weeks.
But developers, authors and musicians need to be compensated for their work. What do we do about this? I think the answer is:
Provide a service.
Today, consumers buy products. But before they do they need to find what is available, determine if they like it or not, and compare different products. Instead of doing this, I am sure many consumers would rather pay for an outfit to keep track of their likes and dislikes and supply wanted items as needed.
Sharing can not be stopped. Without sharing there is no Internet. The Internet is forcing us to replace the intellectual property model with the intellectual service model.
