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Saturday, September 27, 2003
The replication economy wars begin in the third world: India may ban covers of popular new songs (via BoingBoing.)
I hope policy makers in the third world can see that adopting replication laws like those that exist in developed markets are going to be the kiss of death for their information industries.
In Egypt, you cannot get any music from the US or European major labels for two reasons. First, because of draconian copyright laws which make replication a crime. Second, simple economics means that the prices the idiotic record industry wants to charge poor Egyptians are so high that the result is zero demand.
There are many other countries like this, which are effectively locked out of simply buying goods, because the strategies of the businesses that sell them are narrow, greedy, and focused solely on the short-term.
The same phenomenon is going to exist in India at the micro-level if this law passes. The very poor will simply not be able to consume pop music, because the (cheap) cover versions they once could afford will not be available.
Of course, once consumers like this get so alienated with greedy industries, as soon as they can afford to get connected and download a copy of Kazaa, you know what happens next.
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