TV wants to be free

Cory Doctorow tells it like it is:

America's entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacular suicide, while one of Europe's biggest broadcasters -- the BBC -- is rushing headlong to the future, embracing innovation rather than fighting it.

Unlike Hollywood, the BBC is eager and willing to work with a burgeoning group of content providers whose interests are aligned with its own: its audience.

-- "The Beeb Shall Inherit the Earth", Wired News

There's capitalism and then there's capitalism. One day, soon, the entertainment media conglomerates will wake up and realize that they can no longer make good money by monopolizing distribution channels. When every industrialized nation is blanketed with free, reliable, mobile wireless access, we won't need TV channels or radio stations any more. All we'll need is sensible meta tagging, a good search engine, and cheap storage. We're not out of the woods yet, but we can see the clearing. We're going to make it.

With apologies to Joss Whedon: You can't stop the BitTorrents.