Maybe Sony should have read this piece first:
" The effort required to enforce copyright is approaching infinity.
" Encryption, the Industry counters: we will be so clever that we'll only distribute a product that can be unlocked and used by the customer, by the miracle of the cipher, a secret code.
"The Internet was built for maximum survivability in a nuclear war. It's everywhere, and growing exponentially. How's the hell is Entertainment business going to keep up with that? And copyright all you want. The Internet doesn't care; if it can be digitized and loaded onto a networked computer, it will be everywhere, soon. The cyborg guarantees it. Go ahead - sick your lawyers on a few dozen downloaders. It's just a finger in the dyke; a thousand new holes will appear every day. Squared.
"Comparisons of the Internet to a military cyborg really aren't hyperbole. The grim history is that Internet was originally built as a cybernetic military command-and-control infrastructure for coordinating, among other things, the launch of nuclear missiles. Researchers at the Department of Defense figured out that virtual communication circuits on a network beat the heck out of literal, point-to-point circuits of dedicated wiring. This scheme of virtual circuits brought with it the prospect the military could build a control system that could fix itself instantaneously if it sustained damage.
"Damage, as in, nuclear damage. When a segment of the network was compromised -- as in, "Oh, heck -- they just nuked Denver" -- the system could re-configure these virtual circuits on-the-fly -- with computers and routers instead of work crews with pliers, wire and soldering guns -- and the messages would still get through, right now. Simply, the Net interpreted sudden silences in any of its network nodes as damage, and routed around it.
"That is the Prime Directive, core message, and DNA of the Internet, all in one: If you can't get a message through one channel, route around it -- invisibly, silently, relentlessly -- until you make the connection.
"And here's the commercially grizzly implication of that Prime Directive no entertainment executive has, as of yet, been able to understand: The Internet interprets commercial interest, censorship or virtual toll-booths of any kind as damage. And routes around them. Invisibly, automatically, instantaneously."
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