Team 3 - Cory Doctorow Analysis

In his speeches, Doctorow didn't really impress me with any facts. I knew why certain companies like Microsoft had better record company deals than Apple had, or cable tried to screw over the VCR companies. What i was impressed with is how he tied it all together. He somehow managed to go all the way back from the phonograph all the way up to the internet and pirates today. He also did it while providing solid, concrete opinions that included court cases and facts to back himself up. His analysis on the history of the pirate in general I thought was great. You didn't even have to pay attention that much, it was pretty easy to follow, but I did and thought his whole analysis was fantastic. He also gave his thoughts on the future of what would happen with DRM, pirating, and the record companies and even those thoughts were well founded. He obviously did his research and it helped make the speech a lot better for me how he tied it in.

One interesting part of Doctorow's speech was when he pointed out that copyright law is driven by piracy and, in a sense, by hypocrisy. When new technologies are introduced into the recording industry, the old institutions accuse them of piracy. Consequently, copyright law is changed to facilitate the new technology and to quiet those trying to prevent it. Eventually, the new technology becomes the old institution, accusing newer technology of piracy. This cycle has been repeating itself over and over since the invention of the phonograph. It reminds me of the read-only vs. read-write debate -- when someone's creation is used in a way of which they disapprove, they accuse the person using it of breaking the law. Unfortunately, the same progress isn't being made in that situation.