Innovation Seepage

Filed in archive Apple , Commentary , Innovation , Society & Public Policy , Technology on October 5, 2006

Our article The Chill on Innovation covers part of the entertainment industry's battle to thwart threatening technology. But it's an unwinnable war.

The complex world of technologies, markets, and business is far broader, deeper, faster, and more pervasive than Hollywood's kiss and the even slower embrace of the law. Innovation is a liquid that seeps throughout business and society despite stopgap attempts otherwise.

Two cases highlight this seepage in the news. Witness P2P where it took the recording labels 10 years to shut down virtually all major commercial distributed P2P software developers. Yet there has been virtually no effect. P2P use grows. By removing controllable commercial products from the market, the entertainment industry has left freeware, open source, and international software that cannot be controlled.

Another example is DVD Jon Twists DRM. The brilliant programmer shows that technology can be applied many different ways that go beyond one company's plans. DRM can be eliminated (cracked) or added (replicated). The new technology can take away Apple revenues from one end (DRM services), while giving them new sales elsewhere (iPod sales). In an ironic but predictable twist, Apple loses but wins. It loses control over its proprietary architecture but likely will gain in revenues with an increase in iPod sales.