The sharing of digital information contained in large files is done by two basic methods: by electrons, and by atoms. Electrons are shared over wires or wirelessly, and the single most popular place to share them is the Internet. Atoms are shared on a wide scale by truck, and the single most popular place to share them is rapidly becoming the postal service.
As electronic networks have gotten better, the amount of information shared electronically has become vast. Yet for the most pricey content, the advantage of the truck is that the legal issues that often curtail sharing electronically have not applied. That’s because copyright law hates copying, and while electronic transmissions have been interpreted to by their nature copy, atom transmissions have been interpreted as moving, not copying.
The electronic version of sharing started with local area networks, progressed to bulletin board systems, had a few intermediate stages, but didn’t really take off until Napster. If you wanted a music file, just start up Napster, search for the name, and download. It got shut down by the courts, because it had the ability to control the copyright infringment occurring on its system and didn’t prevent it. BitTorrent based networks, Grokster, eDonkey, Morpheus, and countless other software programs, which unlike Napster didn’t store information on what files were being traded centrally, took over where Napster let off.
The commercial companies involved in such software often got shut down by the courts, for copyright infringement, although the networks themselves often live on. New forms of file sharing, like AllPeers, and FolderShare, are just now starting to obtain traction, and are more focused on enabling sharing between people who know each other.
Sharing between people who don’t know each other still exists, but rather than rely on the wire, to find shelter from the outcries of the copyright owners it relies on the truck. The most significant example is Netflix, which allows multiple users to share a DVD. For music, the latest innovation is LaLa.com, which allows people to look up who has the physical CD they want, and then trade CDs for about $1.
Some people seem to think it’s just a matter of time before copyright law catches up to this divergence, and electronic sharing becomes the norm. Particularly promising is the funding of such content via advertising.
If sharing by electron does become lucrative due to advertising, given the economic stakes involved, will the purveyors of atom sharing be allowed to continue? Or will their source of content run dry…
