Evil Music Industry

Laurence Lessig's rant against the music industry is sounding like a broken record, so to speak. In Who's Holding Back Broadband? he cites with approval a statement by FCC Chairman Michael Powell,

"Broadband-intensive content," the chairman said, "is in the hands of major copyright holders." These copyright holders have been hesitant to free their content to the net. Their slowness, in turn, has slowed broadband technologies in general.

The assumption here is that the music distribution industry has been effective in protecting copyright. If you follow the law, as Professor Lessig does, you would be impressed by the ability of the music distributors in passing extremely protective legislation. However, if you follow the Internet, you realize that music is flowing freely in spite of the legislation.