Influence

I was just reading a New Scientist article noting the similarities between controlling disease epidemics, mapping web interconnections, and hunting down heretics during the inquisition. It is interesting to see the techniques that the church discovered for controlling the spread of heresy. They started with a heavy-handed approach of killing everyone in towns suspected of harboring dissenters. It didn't take long to work out that this approach was very inefficient. By the end of the 13th century they had refined their techniques to focus on certain highly connected and influential individuals.

Reading the article reminded me of the recent actions of the RIAA. I find it amusing that the RIAA is trying those same techniques that failed for the church. They want to stamp out file sharing so they impose heavy-handed legal penalties on file sharers. What they have failed to account for is that there are too many highly connected and influential individuals to be stamped out. The technology to create file sharing programs is readily accessible to any student. The thirst for shared files is like the thirst for knowledge that plagued the church and undermined its dogmatism.

What can the RIAA learn from history? Could it be that their dogma is wrong? Could it be that their old music distribution model just doesn't work and the centralised church of commercial recording no longer holds a monopoly on music marketing. If history teaches us anything, it tells us that they will keep fighting zealously long after it's obvious that they have lost the fight.