We’re now seeing a repeat of this scenario, but where the distribution industry — the copyright industry — has the audacity to stand up and demand special laws and say that the economy will collapse without their unnecessary services. But we learn from history, every time, that it is good when an industry becomes obsolete. That means we have learned something important — to do things in a more efficient way. New skills and trades always appear in its wake.
— Nobody Asked For A Refrigerator Fee – Pirate Bay founder Rick Falkvinge on how Sweden’s 19th-century icemen, made obsolete by the refrigeration technology, offer a timely analogy to what’s happening to the media industry in the age of peer-to-peer filesharing and the absurdity of the legislature around it. (via curiositycounts)
