The Null Device

Read: Ex-WIRED cyberculture digeratus Kevin Kelly on where music will be coming from in the age of unlimited digital copying.
But the moment something becomes free and ubiquitous, its position in the economic equation is suddenly inverted. When nighttime electrical lighting was new, it was the poor who burned common candles. When electricity became easily accessible and practically free, candles at dinner became a sign of luxury

Of course, this Utopian view does not entertain the possibility of a dystopia of totalitarian access control everywhere in the interests of "protecting intellectual property" from becoming something other, and guaranteeing the megacorps' ability to harvest the profits as before; which may well be the most likely outcome.

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