Bit Torrent and Open Government

Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the UK Government has got a few things wrong in its short history of using and legislating the Internet.

Let me nail my colours to the mast and say that I am a huge fan of Cory Doctorow’s philosophy:

“As a practical matter, we live in the 21st century and anything anybody wants to copy they will be able to copy. If you are building a business model that says that people can only copy things with your permission, your business is going to fail because whether or not you like it, people will be able to copy your product without your permission. The question is: what are you going to do about that? Are you going call them thieves or are you going to find a way to make money from them?”

I truly believe that there are new business models waiting to be discovered, tried, tested and executed. I’m not just talking about Kevin Kelly’s Truefans or Rupert Murdoch’s Paywall, P2P is perhaps one of the best marketing tools that has ever existed (next to the immortal words Free Beer). The best way to monetise P2P file-sharing is not through litigation.

Today, whilst reading Nextweb’s piece on the UK Government releasing 10GB of public-spending information via Bit Torrent, I actually felt a little proud of the Men-from-the-Ministry for embracing the 21^st Century.

Dare I say it, I even felt hopeful. This is what Open Government should be. Fingers-crossed eh?

Image: P2P Foundation