The same old song

The New York Times adds some historical perspective to the music industry's seeming battle to the against P2P file sharing networks: It's all happened before.

New technologies have always met staunch resistance from established interests. Fierce battles were fought to keep audiocasettes, videotapes and FM radio out of consumer hands. "The early defenders of the industry did not understand the ways that the power of the new communications tool would help them market their goods to a broader audience," the Times notes.

But it was the early 1990s "grand battle" against strong encryption technology -- fought by the federal government rather than private industry -- that's most similar to the current fight against P2P networks. Although both can be exploited by criminals, they have too many non-criminal uses to simply fade away. Security expert Bruce Schneider tells the Times that the real goal of the opponents in both cases is simply to delay the technology's inevitable adoption.

If Hollywood cares to learn from the crypto wars, the lesson might be that it is more realistic to adapt to powerful technology, rather than quixotically try to block it. ... Technologies can be stubborn. Efforts to knock them down can send them rebounding back with a new twist.