Ever read the cryptonomicon? You should, any science fiction/WWII history buff ought to. One of the premises of the book is that ultimately offshore ‘data havens’ will enable companies to hide transactions and communications from government and law enforcement, sort of in the way that financial transactions can be concealed in the Swiss banking system. A side effect of this could be that you could conduct ‘unauthorized’ data transactions on these networks without fear of repercussions from the authorities. I’ve become mostly convinced that ultimately these data havens will come into being – countries outside of the sphere of interest of ‘western’ capitalism will build data infrastructures because they have the potential to be hugely profitable. I’ve actually been mildly obsessed with this ever since I read Cryptonomicon.

What might these data havens look like? Well, they might for example look like this. Want to download first run hollywood movies? Perfect copies of music CD’s? Audiobooks? Fine, get busy. Several enterprising palistinians in the west bank are providing you with a supposedly anonymous way to go about ‘stealing’ copyrighted materials to your heart’s content.

I was pleased as punch to discover this. I still remain convinced this is one of the shapes of things to come, it only makes sense. Why should billions of Indian or Chinese or african citizens follow US copyright law? It’s in their financial interest not to, and maybe from them will spring a more rational method of compensation for artists.