Three long pieces have been published in the past several days, each profiling an individual that has—and continues to have—a powerful influence on the evolving digital media landscape. Each of the subjects, in their own way, is a genius of sorts, with a knack for disruptive inventiveness that challenges the status quo.
Two of the profiles are published in Fortune magazine. The first, by Daniel Roth, focuses on Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file-sharing software that Roth says “account[s] for more than 20% of [Internet] traffic at any one time,” including a subtantial illegal flow of copyright works. Cohen, who launched BitTorrent on an open-source platform and has so far not been targeted by Hollywood or the music industry, is now heading up a company aiming to leverage the BitTorrent software into a profit-making business that legally distributes copyrighted work.
The second Fortune profile, by Adam Lashinsky, examines Rupert Murdoch and his recent “case of Internet fever,” dubbing itself “a real-time portrait of a legendary mogul remaking his media colossus.” Among other things, Murdoch is known for disrupting both the print and television industries. Having created a global content and distribution empire in traditional media, he now intends to spend a billion or two to work his magic in the Web 2.0 space, which some believe is like mixing oil and water.
The third piece, by the Wall Street Journal’s Steve Stecklow, tells the story of Jon Lech Johansen, a 21-year old high school drop out who Stecklow says “may be the entertainment industry’s worst nightmare.”
At the age of 15, Mr. Johansen wrote a computer program that allowed users to copy DVDs. Then he posted it on the Internet. A Norwegian private school awarded him a prize for making an outstanding contribution to society. The Norwegian government indicted him…Mr. Johansen was acquitted both times.
He has since moved on. These days he is targeting Apple Computer Inc., repeatedly hacking the software that runs its popular, Internet-based iTunes music store to remove restrictions on how many times legally bought songs can be copied or on which devices they can be played. And Mr. Johansen says he may take a look at the new version of iTunes Apple released this week, which offers TV shows that can be played on new iPods — although he’s not too interested in trying to defeat its anticopy technology yet because he says the shows’ video resolution is too low to look good on computers or TV sets.
Mitch Shapiro at 12:37 PM|Comments(0)
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