Mar 09
11
P2P – Serving Humanity.
When I was running Lake Technology a few years ago we spent a lot of time putting together a deal with a major Japanese chip manufacturer.
The discussions and the business development process went on for several years – as it often does when you are trying to build a relationship with a company that is based on trust. And you have to be patient about these things…
At one poing in time the one of the senior engineers took me aside during a visit to the factory and said to me, “Gilbey-san, if a deal is to be closed with us, it will require the sign-off of the Chairman of the company. So I am going to introduce you to him. Please do not embarass me”.
I assured him that I would treat the meeting very seriously, and true to his word, on my next visit to Japan, I was introduced to the Chairman.
The Chairman arrived at the meeting room we were all in – their engineers and myself, together with the CTO, and several others from Lake. The Chairman and I shook hands and we were shown into a small room adjoining the meeting room that had a small card table and a couple of chairs and a filing cabinet in it.
We sat down.
The Chairman said to me, “So, Gilbey-san, what is your philosophy about technology?”
I was non-plussed for a moment, and then I said, “I believe that technology should serve humanity. Humanity should not serve technology”.
The Chairman reached over the table and shook my hand. He said, “Very good, we can do business” and then walked out the room.
Over the next few years, he and I became good friends….
But the moral of the story is that so much of what is done in the name of business these days is about a slavish belief in technology and its ability to serve the corporate agenda, rather than the use of technology to serve the greater good.
Now, I know we go on a lot here about P2P, but there is a reason. P2P, as a technology, has the ability to serve a huge amount of humanity in a positive way, delivering good. Yes, a lot of people share music and movies via the various P2P offerings that are out there. And the content companies go on a lot about piracy and foregone revenues.
But, think about it for a moment. They are not doing the math. They are looking at humanity serving technology. They want the vast mass of humanity to serve them by paying them for every file that is shared. And under the current copyright law, that is what should happen, as I understand.
But that doesn't meant that it is a smart strategy.
What they need to do is to look at what the P2P community does with content. P2Pers are the great vibe-spreaders in the marketplace, building up the word of mouth on things at an extremely fast rate. And that encourages people to buy.
What the content industry needs to get its head around is that P2P is not the enemy. It should be their friend. P2P can be monetized for content owners as long as content owners are prepared to embrace the possibility of change, and recognize that the copyright law that is in existence has very little true and logical relevance in the digital realm.
Why?
Because any law that doesn't recognize the reality of life ultimately causes a societal and cultural shift. The societal and cultural shift that is rapidly taking place (and this has been going on now for about 12 years) is one in which people are learning how to hide what they are doing with the tools that they have. And the people who are hiding are doing a better job that the people who think that their content is being stolen.
The longer people hide their file sharing with impunity, the more that society builds a disconnect with law. In my opinion that is a bad thing. But it is the only logical outcome from a bad strategy by content companies.
Remember “Technology should serve humanity”. P2P does that very well, I believe.