Wayne Rosso, ex-CEO of Grokster and ex-CEO of OptiSoft (a Spanish P2P company) was kind enough to share his perspective of the file-sharing landscape with this Weblog. Wayne is currently working on an undisclosed new P2P venture, about which he has been quoted saying, "this will change the entire p2p landscape in a new and positive way".
1) As a veteran leader of the file-sharing movement, you have led two major P2P companies. What is the
greatest challenge (technical, political, administrative, whatever) facing P2P software firms today?
Clearly the legislative front is the greatest challenge. It's truly a David vs. Goliath situation and it's really hard
to try to fight back when the other side has so many resources. And not only are we concerned about legislation aimed
at specifically eliminating p2p technology but also the rights and privacy of our users. Not only can they attack
us on Capitol Hill, but they're coming at us in individual state houses as well. So instead of fighting a war on one
front you're suddenly faced with fighting 51 separate battles. To effectively counter the bad legislation and the
misinformation that is floating around out there requires an enormous amount of money and manpower. They couldn't
beat us in court so and if you don't have the law on your side the remedy is simple: change the laws. Many would say
that technological advances may be the biggest challenge, but if you've been legislated out of business what's the
point? To make matters worse, the users don't seem to not want to mobilize and speak up, whichis what it really takes
to stop this madness if there's no big money to throw around.
2) As the industry lawsuits grind on, and extend throughout Europe, lobbying organizations like the RIAA and
IFPI crow victoriously, while conflicting studies indicate that file-sharing continues unabated. What is your view? Are
consumers afraid? Are they gaining respect for copyright controls? Do the lawsuits have cumulative effect one way or
the other?
Frankly I believe that the lawsuits have a temporary effect when first filed, then are quickly forgotten and users go
back to their old habits. The users know all about copyrights at this juncture, but just don't seem to care. I think
that the more that users are being "educated" by the content owners, the more resentful they're becoming of them. No
one wants to get sued by the RIAA, but at the same time I believe that users want to defy them as well. It's sort
of an act of civil disobedience. As a result the copyright owners seem to be successfully convincing Congress to just
ban p2p networks entirely. So in that sense the lawsuits are not working.
3) Looking at the whole distribution landscape—wired and the emergent wireless relam, DRM and no-DRM,
authorized clients and unauthorized clients, dwindling CD relevance—what role will P2P play in the new world of music
distribution? More broadly, to what extent will people obtain their music through sharing, not purchasing, five years
from now? Or will the two be combined?
That's a good question. A few months ago I would have said that traditional distribution and physical good would
disappear. That p2p would be the dominate form of distribution. In that scenario, if embraced by record companies,
there would be DRM involved, though it would have to be very fluid and much less restrictive. Now, with the
introduction of new, very draconian legislation, it looks as though they may succeed in eliminating us all, although we
will continue to fight to the end. In that event the record companies will have won and will continue to hang on to
their old ways for as long as possible. Let's face it. They have way too much capital invested in traditional
distribution and technologies to abandon them. It will be a very slow and arduous process for fans.
SEE PART 2 OF THIS INTERVIEW HERE.
