Song Replicator

Imagine a futuristic world in which you find yourself in possession of a device that can make a perfect copy of any physical item you put into it. Star Trek fans know this as the replicator, a device that can create food, tools, or anything else you need at the push of a button. It’s sort of a Xerox machine for tangible items. All the replicator needs to operate is a source of energy and raw materials – both of which are, of course, abundant and cheap in the future. The replicator doesn’t even need to start with an object to copy if it has the pattern of an object stored in its memory – sort of like today’s digital copiers which actually scan a document once and produce all the copies from the one scanned image in memory. In the Star Trek universe millions of patterns are kept on file in the computers, and users of the replicator can even request customized items by simple voice command – "Tea, Earl Grey, hot."

I’m not going to delve into a philosophical debate of whether or not money would still exist in a world where the replicator is more common than today’s microwave oven. I will submit, however, that the exchange of money for those items that could be replicated at near zero cost would cease. A pastry chef who just created the best chocolate cake the world has ever known probably won’t try to get people to buy the replicator pattern for it. He’ll probably just distribute the pattern in the hopes that his cake stands out among all the other freely available patterns for chocolate cake. This phenomenon is already observable today when you look at open source software and freeware on the internet. People contribute their time and effort to open source software because they enjoy doing it. They edit Wikipedia because they like sharing their expertise. Humans have always and will always engage in intellectual pursuits for the thrill of discovery, the joy of creativity, and the pride of productivity.

Taking a few steps back from the utopian Star Trek universe we can envision the world during the development of replicator technology. I imagine that the first replicators were probably only able to duplicate small, simple items whose patterns were not too large; a hammer, a golf ball, a pair of socks, a glass of water, a diamond. As time went on and the technology improved the library of items that could be synthesized grew larger and more complex. The energy and raw material cost continued to drop and soon people were replicating foods, chemicals, and electronics. I’m taking the time to illustrate this gradient because mankind has already started heading down this technological road. We have already mastered replicator technology for one kind of good, and that good is information.

Information replication has been in the hands of industry for decades, but tape recorders and copy machines began to put that technology into the hands of everyday people. The personal computer took information digital, and the internet opened up a near-zero cost distribution channel for it. The near zero cost of replicating and distributing information represents a great leap forward for human civilization, but has caused economic problems for certain vendors of information. The recording industry in the United States has experienced a sharp degree of pain in this area. Record companies used to be able to rely on the complexity, expense, and territorial distribution channels of the physical media to maintain price levels and profits. Now all of those control mechanisms have been stripped from them.

The music industry has suffered the greatest because they deal in an information format that is neither large nor complex. Sound, and hence music, is easily digitized and compressed and is therefore easily distributed. A large music collection can be stored in very little space on a personal computer, and an album can very easily and cheaply be put back onto physical media. Video information is not much more complex, but enjoys the advantage of being much larger in size. Computer software and video games also have large information footprints and are more complex in nature. Complexity and size are barriers to easy replication and distribution, but they are only temporary barriers.

The recording industry’s most effective response to the problem has been to begin online distribution and drastically cut prices for music singles. Albeit late in the game, they realized that trying to crush out the internet as a distribution channel was not practical. The have also employed the use of DRM, digital rights management, technology in their distribution. I don’t view this so much as an actual technology, but rather an artificial layer of complexity – as complexity is a barrier to replication and distribution. The combination of lower prices and greater file complexity simply lowers the likelihood that the average consumer will seek out a free copy. If you make piracy a hassle, and the legal route is cheap then more people will take the legal route.

The end of the road is the same for all information products in my opinion. Eventually all creative works will end up like the pattern for the chocolate cake for your replicator. They will be created for their own sake, and shared freely. DRM won’t be around forever, and neither will the record companies or the RIAA – but the musicians will. What we are seeing now with music piracy is the unveiling of a truth: Music is an art, and, like all creative endeavors, it exists for its own sake. Art is intrinsically invaluable while simultaneously being worthless. Money is just a nice fringe benefit, and a function only of the current era of human development -- an era that is ending for some.