Absolutely, the continued emphasis on control is a lingering product of old models that operate under power relations between producers and consumers that just don’t hold up anymore. I sympathize with the struggle content producers and copyright holders have in tracking, measuring, and ultimately monetizing the popular spread of their content, but control really isn’t the way. I mean, sure, if you keep your content from spread, it sure does become easier to see where it goes. Namely, nowhere.

I hate taking the position that “it’s broken, so let’s just live it” regarding piracy and control over digital content, but the reality is that content creators simply can’t control their content when it makes its way to the Internet. The Internet is a distribution channel unlike anything we’ve seen before. As Cory Doctorow puts it, the net is one massive copying machine. There just aren’t enough hours, dollars, and personnel to shut down every illegal copy or use of copyrighted works.

Consumers are dictating the terms of both consumption and use. Producers can either work with existing tools (e.g., Internet) and the social customs (consumer remixing, reusing, repurposing, redistributing) or against them. I’m guessing it’s a lot more effective to work with them.