Copyright holders deliberately crippled digital formats to preserve old business models

Evidence

“The music cartels,” according to Aram Sinnreich, “artificially limited the functionality of digital music to emulate the inherent limitations of twentieth-century distribution platforms, thereby preserving the integrity of economic and institutional models premised on those limitations.” Between the policy gains and the continual consolidation, a renewed corporate oligopoly arose out of the “piracy” moment with an increased ability to dictate its terms. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 201

Categorization

• XREF: A precise instance of institutional economics’ logic — incumbents use regulation to preserve rent streams — echoing Milgrom and the diamond-trade materials.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that an industry deliberately degraded a new technology’s functionality to preserve an old profit model is a sharp, generalizable mechanism worth holding on to.