Monday, January 07, 2008

The “Profound Truth” about the Global Information Revolution – Part 1

The problem with “profound truths” in this world that is that very few people really know about them. As technology and human desires move along the circumference of the wheel of time, some people understand these “profound truths” - about their existence, their business, their quality of life or even daily habits and then adapt and evolve accordingly to ensure longevity.

So why, then, does it take so long for corporations in the digital age who rely on business from information or content to understand these profound truths about their business?


  • The age of “closely guarded” information/media/ideas is slowly dying out – as with the printing of books, the internet has changed forever the way society creates and consumes content


  • One cannot rely on a sole business model of content creation and distribution any longer – your “proprietary and copyrighted” content will get distributed to millions on the internet sooner or later


  • It is impossible to “guard” information completely – whether it’s DRM or Encryption or Anti-piracy measures – these get cracked within a few hours, if not days







If you haven’t seen “Steal this Film”, Part 1 and Part 2 yet, I highly recommend you download it and watch it ASAP. It basically encapsulates the thoughts of millions of people in the world today, who have been brought up and are living in the Internet era, where boundaries don’t exist and freedom is mandatory. The films might be Europe-centric, but they reflect the sentiments of people around the world. There are a lot of “profound truths” in those two films – I can’t recommend them highly enough.

So why can’t businesses understand that the world has changed so much in the past decade (regarding the freedom of information) that they need to evolve drastically to survive? How come millions of people in the world agree that “pirating” content is alright? Why are so many businesses still in denial mode, whining to the world’s legal systems and trying to enforce profit-making copyrights and trying to control the distribution of content?

No comments: