Earlier this week the National Post ran a story titled Video Theft May Rise in Canada. The story is interesting as it demonstrates that the headlines on peer-to-peer may not be changing, but the underlying story certainly is. The article is not what you might think – rather than yet another story alleging Canadian movie piracy or weak copyright laws, it is actually focused on how Canadians may not immediately benefit from the push to online video in the U.S. since many U.S. broadcasters will block out Canadian users.
What does that have to do with "video theft"? Other than the unnecessary use of a sensational headline based on the mistaken premise that this is a piracy issue, there is a brief reference in the article that notes that more Canadians will download television shows through peer-to-peer networks if they are blocked out of U.S. streams. Of course, the same shows are freely available on television, so this form of "piracy" is merely device shifting freely available content from one screen to another.
Leaving aside questions about whether this is actually a concern, I think it is noteworthy that the article flips around the conventional approach to business and peer-to-peer.
