TV gets Napsterized

This Times article makes it pretty clear that commercial television is now portable and transmissible enough to drive a substantial p2p marketplace. But the difference between a ripped episode of "The Simpsons" and a ripped copy of "The Simpsons Sing the Blues" is potentially highly significant.

The TV show is initially freely distributed. The free distribution is (to state the obvious) driven by commercial support. By contrast, the CD's initial market is purchasers, and there is no initial free distribution. Now, assume for the sake of argument that we could assure that all episodes of "The Simpsons" would be distributed with their commercials intact. There would be nothing presenting viewers from hitting some moral equivalent of the fast-forward button, but the commercials would remain embedded within the file. (Arguably, the commercials from the first broadcast of a given episode provide a helpful index of the particular zeitgeist that "The Simpsons," as a satiric enterprise, are critiquing/deflating.) If the commercials were guaranteed to travel with their attendant episodes, who would reasonably object to the circulation of such files on p2p networks.

For the advertisers, the p2p circulation would translate into more eyes.
Thus, for the networks, the p2p circulation might translate into a larger audience and higher fees for advertising slots.

In this hypothetical, the only apparent harm is potentially to the secondary market for DVD collections of a season's worth of episodes. But given the extras and goodies now routinely bundled with a standard DVD edition, to say nothing of the likely preference for commercial-free presentations of the episodes, it seems likely that p2p transfers of commercial-laden episodes would have little impact on DVD sales.

So I wonder whether the presence or absence of commercials will play a role in who gets sued when the first wave of RIAA-style lawsuits hits p2p Simpsons fans.

Shaky Foundations

This Minneapolis Star-Tribune story made me gasp, and not merely because it directly references the Feist case. The case referenced in the article provides an index on how very, very, very freakin' far we've traveled from 1790, when copyright addressed ONLY "books, maps, and charts." Note that the (losing) plaintiff had apparently registered its condominium designs with the U.S. Patent Office, but chose to pursue the defendant NOT via patent law, but through copyright. Note further that the case was grounded in the same type "look and feel" arguments that Apple employed to pursue Windows. I'm thankful that, for the moment, federal juries are rejecting these sorts of claims, but I can easily envision a time when the promulgation of corporate ownership of ideas as the copyright paradigm will produce a different result.