Bob Wright still adamant about the cost of piracy

Filed in archive Announcements on October 28, 2006

in other news, we learned that Bram Cohen heads a sleeper cell of Al Qaeda

You may recall my posting about Bob Wright's 'war' on piracy, even going so far as to link it to the fight on terrorism. I believe Mr. Wright's comments are important because he is the Chairman of NBC Universal.

My analysis mostly centered on those circumstances when piracy actually leads to beneficial results and thought it was in NBC's interests to exploit that aspect. Subsequently, I learned that ABC understands at least part of that thought.

But I did comment that Mr. Wright needed to take a chill pill and stop the comparison to terrorism. So, do you think that these weeks later he regrets that particular tactic? Not by what I read in Broadcasting and Cable. In a speech on Wednesday at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council:

Wright said that when he suggested the connection between physical and economic security to some executives at NBC U, "I was accused of being melodramatic. Wasn't I overdoing it a bit? To which I responded: 'No, I'm not overdoing it.'"

UPDATE:

I just noticed an article over at Web 2.0 that ties in nicely to this theme. Apparently, a BitTorrent developer was convicted recently. The creator of that technology, ironically, is Bram Cohen -- the person mentioned in my subtitle above!