Copyrights Need New Business Models

fleener writes "Business 2.0 has an article simplifying the brouhaha over DVD and MP3. In a nutshell, the author argues a new business model is needed which destroys the motive to copy, not the mechanisms used to copy. For example, "a wireless flat-fee/advertising-supported jukebox of unlimited capacity would strip us of our desire to make MP3 files." He goes on to relate this idea to the success of other media formats, such as video cassettes. So, if the mechanisms for copying digital works are not restricted, what business model do you think is viable for the MP3/DVD paranoid entertainment industry?" And more important, how would you convince them to adopt it?

Comments

"wireless, unlimited jukebox"?

[arcsNsparx]

Let me see if I got this straight - Wireless, flat fee/Advertising supported jukebox with unlimited capacity... So we would set up transmitters in every city, and a phone line where listeners could call in and ask for a song to be played, and have different kinds of stations play different kinds of music! And support it by ads - we could even offer news and weather on the hour! And THAT could be sponsored by advertisers too! People could have little players that fit in cars, on their wrist, on their heads! Maybe we could call it - FM Radio!!! Genious? No - maybe something else.

Capitalism at its finest

[cdlu]

Always one for cynicism, I think this whole thing with the RIAA and the MPAA and the DeCSS is just going to show how far out of whack US capitalism has gone.

Patents, Copyrights, etc. are[were] designed to protect people, not profits. It used to be a crime to profiteer in the US, now its a crime to prevent the rich from getting richer. I feel very strongly that its time for the US to go back to revolution and start clean. Same applies to most western democracies.

I can't remember who said it (I'm no historian), but one of the American 'fathers' cautionned that the US needed a civil war or societal restructuring of some sort every generation to ensure a truly democratic nation.
#include <signal.h> \ #include <stdlib.h> \ int main(void){signal(ABRT,SIGIGN);while(1){abort(-1); }return(0);}

Could have been easy, now it's tricky

[P_Simm]

If the industry had been more tech-aware and less paranoid, they could have turned the mp3 trend into their own cash cow - not by trying to sell them, but simply by dominating the mp3 scene with their own free distribution of singles. They could have set up their own mp3 web sites, paid for by advertising and by the generated sales. They wouldn't be giving up much more than they already do by playing singles on the radio. They probably would have stopped the illegal mp3 scene from growing so rapidly, since almost everyone looking for mp3's just wants the latest single they heard on the radio anyway.

Now, the mp3 scene is probably too big for them to even catch up with, and they won't release singles for fear of appearing weak on their anti-piracy stance. It'd be great if an intelligent business approach was taken in this area - let's just hope it's not too late.

The Fundamental Difference.

[Hrunting]

There is one major fundamental difference that everyone seems to ignore when it comes to MP3s and DVD piracy. Whereas with videocassettes and cassette tapes and photocopies, you had to pay for some sort of medium on which to copy the target work, with MP3s and DVD rips, you don't need anything but disk space, which people already have. I see people say that copyright laws were there to prevent people from rattling off 1000 copies of a book and then selling them, but a) it cost a bit of money to rattle off 1000 copies and b)the copies weren't identical to the original. But with an MP3 rip, it is identical, and it doesn't cost anything to do it. Sure, no one's selling MP3s, but copyrights weren't meant to prevent people from selling stuff, they were meant to give the author the right to manage the content, including distribution. Giving something away still steals a sale from the copyright owner.

The VCR debate is not an analogy to the Mp3/DVD debate since it required both a) an extra machine and b) another video cassette. Both induced financial burdens that could be monitored, but the warez activity on USENET shows that this is not the case for MP3s. What the RIAA and MPAA are worried about is not controlling your lives to make sure that you can't get your information, but controlling their information which they have the legal right to distribute. The problem they have is that people are ignoring that right, just simple blatant ignorance. I think the MPAA and RIAA are taking a typical corporate hard-line stance in favor of their legal arguments, their open-source opponents are taking an equally hard-line stance against them, and the end result is helping neither side. OS people look like a bunch of little anarchist brats with no regard for the world they live in. Just as the MPAA and RIAA have been adversarial in their approach to the situation, OS members have been just as adversarial in theirs ("Oh, well, if we post DeCSS to all the newsgroups and message boards on the Internet, they can't stop us!").

The article's suggestions about a jukebox and about new copyright laws are what I would call constructive ideas. They show the MPAA how to control distribution in such a way as to give the people what they want. I think the idea itself is a bit too much like radio and does not take into account that people can freely copy the data and ignore the signal, but at least it's constructive. It ignores that fundamental difference, though, free and easy redistribution.

I personally wouldn't mind paying for my MP3s or DVD rips. Figure out a way to code in a security check that replies with a key unique to your player, so that even if you do copy it, it needs a certain key to play. Granted, any security system can be cracked with brute force, but if that's the only way it can be cracked (ie. no deCSS our there for the files), then that's ten times better than battles between crackers and corporates.

The idea is not to reject our current copyright system, for it does work very well to protect intellectual rights. The idea is to figure out a way to respect those rights and give the people their data. I would much rather listen to my music knowing that I had respected the author's right to distribute it than listen to brats and bigwigs bicker back and forth about what each other's rights are.

Re:The Fundamental Difference.

[Chris Johnson]

"Imagine if music used the open source model, as exemplified by Red Hat, et al. Musicians would write music, and not get paid for it. They'd have to work as waiters or cashiers for a living, or maybe to some live performances if they're lucky. The music labels would sell "distros" that would have music from various artists. They would have some sound engineers on staff to do some tweaks to the sound on their distros to make them sound a bit better. You could either download the music for free, or buy the music in the store (but you're really buying a box and "technical support"). In the latter case, only the label makes any money. The musicians rarely, if ever, make a cent off of the work they did. Yup, that sure sounds like a great business model..."

ROFL! Talk to some musicians. Your fears of the future for an 'opensource' musician actually describe the lot of a musician in the existing industry. It's no way to make a living, and switching to some other model would be no hardship for most musicians, who already deal with fulltime dayjobs and actually spend money at their art rather than earn money with it- and I'm talking about signed musicians.

I think it would be very interesting to see ideas thrown around for opensource music business models. The ones that work would (interestingly) share huge amounts in common with the existing strategies for maybe (if you're lucky + willing to work hard) gaining instead of losing off the current industry. In other words, putting together a business plan, financing the gear you need to do your job (and _only_ the gear you need- good advice is that if you're not a sound engineer, don't build a studio, rent time at one and prepare well), putting a lot out there for exposure (which invariably seems like throwing it away, whether it's mailing off 50 expensive promo kits or allowing people to download your MP3s), and then having some means (gigs, merchandising, a little indie label) to get income from people who want to clap _and_ throw money.

It sounds like a better deal than the industry, because it is a better deal than the industry. The only caveat is that it's even more obvious that you have to have a business plan to make money- that or I hope you have a good manager :) however, this is not in fact _different_ from the status quo in the industry, it's just more in-your-face: nobody would dream of putting across a fiction that you could sit at home giving away MP3s and people would pay you for it, where by contrast some people like putting across the fiction that with the industry there's some chance of sitting at home recording songs and the industry will pay you for it. And that's nonsense, you need the business team and a plan.

Re:The Fundamental Difference.

[Hobbex]

You are completely and entirely wrong and you haven't even thought through what you are saying. Sometimes I wish that Slashdot moderators would actually read the posts rather than marking anything that is long and well worded up.

This not a matter of equally wrong sides bickering. There is an ethical choice here: Can a person or organisation ever have the right to with threat of violence control the spread of information?

If you answered yes, you can say goodbye to Freedom in the information age.

The MPAA president had it right when he said in his LA Times collumn that "you cannot own something that you cannot controle." And that pretty much sums their side. They want to maintain controle, and hence ownership, of information at any cost to the consumer. We are infringing on their economic interests to protect our freedom, they are infringing on our freedom to protect their economic interests. If you think that both sides are equally justified, you need to _seriously_ re-evaluate your personal ethics.

The idea IS to reject our current copyright system, because it works only to the benefit of the creators of thought and art to a small degree of what it works to benefite large multinational coroporations that couldn't care less about rights or innovation or art. The idea IS to reject our current copyright system because it based on the idea that infromation is not free, and an information society can NEVER be free if information is not.

-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.

About Fscking Time

[ewhac]

It's about time someone else floated this idea; namely, that existing business models cannot work in the digital universe, where everything can be infinitely copied. Just imagine what life would be like in a world with Star Trek-like replicators; how would you be able to sell anything?

So, there are two issues needing to be addressed:

1. What intellectual property laws will we need in a universe with infinite copyability,
2. What economic models do we create to replace the market-based economy, which we use to motivate people to do useful/necessary things?

In a world with replicators everywhere, trying to restrict copying isn't just impossible, it's childishly naïve. People would laugh at the attempt. However, even though control over copies isn't possible, control over reputation is. In fact, reputation becomes tremendously important. If you see (a copy of) something you like, and would like to have something similar made, you'd like to be able to get in touch with the original designer, reliably. You'd like to be assured that the person you're speaking to is the true holder of the reputation you're seeking, rather than a charlatan. So laws guarding against theft/dilution of reputation will be important and necessary.

As for the second point -- economic models -- that one's a little tougher for "ephemeral" stuff, like music. Although copies are freely available, the creator's time is still a scarce resource. So the economy will revolve around competing for the artist's time rather than their artifacts. How would people know to approach a particular artist? Through their reputation.

One possible way this could be done today is to set up a Web site whereby artists/programmers put up their wares for open bidding. Let's say John Carmack decides he wants $50M for Quake-4. So he puts it up for bid: "Quake 4, by id Software. Price: USD$50,000,000". Visitors bid whatever they want for it: $10, $50, $100, etc. The bids are held in escrow for a certain time limit (established by the artist). When the sale price is reached, Carmack gets the $50M, and Quake 4 is released free to the world. (Quake 4 remains listed on the Web site, so people can throw "tips" in the jar.) If the requested sale price isn't reached, the code isn't released, and all bidders get their money back. The artist can resubmit for a different price if they wish.

This is just one possible idea (one I think is terribly interesting and worth exploring). Others doubtless exist.

Start exploring, people...

Schwab

Semantic Trap

[Robert Wilde]

The best forms of copy protection are new business models that destroy the motive to copy, not its mechanism.

The argument of the article is solid, but it has fallen into accepting the semantic trap that copyright owners are using to frame the issue.

What is the difference between:
1. Copyright Protection
2. Copy Protection
3. Access Protection

The first is what copyright holders have traditionally held. For the last several decades, however, there has been a trend to equate copying with copyright violation. Nothing could be further from the truth - copyright law only exists because of the balance that was struck between the inherent fair use rights of the public and the statutory rights granted to content providers.

Now, under the DMCA, copyright holders are attempting to change the debate again. According to the DMCA, copyright holders now have the right to dictate the terms under which you can access a copyrighted work.

The community needs to lobby hard to overturn the DMCA's restrictions on access and fair use. That means writing your Congressman and Senator (yes, he or she voted for the DMCA - they all did) and inform them of the abuse of law that the MPAA and RIAA is engaging in. Digital works should be protected by the same tradition of copyright that helped spawn innovation in this country over the last 200 years. Digital works do not deserve special protections beyond the scope of traditional copyright law!

Constitutional justification for copyright law

[David Jao]

copyrights weren't meant to prevent people from selling stuff, they were meant to give the author the right to manage the content, including distribution.

No! You are so wrong! I don't know what country you're from, but here in the US the legal intent of copyright law is defined in, of all places, the US Constitution, the highest law in the land.

The Constitution says (and I quote):

The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

Federal copyright law owes its entire legitimacy to this clause in the Constitution. Reading it, you will see that copyright law exists to promote progress in science and arts, and not, as you say, to give authors control.

The incorrect notion that copyright and patent law exists to give the copyright/patent owner control over their work has been misused time and time again by corporations to justify increasingly restrictive intellectual property laws, even to the point of choking progress in science and arts in a manner contrary to the Constitutional justification for copyright and patent law. But the Constitution is very clear on this point, assuming anyone even bothers to read it anymore. Authors should not be given an amount of control over their work that is so excessive that it hinders instead of promotes progress.

I'll have to (respectfully) disagree

[guran]

Can a person or organisation ever have the right to with threat of violence control the spread of information?
If you answered yes, you can say goodbye to Freedom in the information age.

Let me state another question:
Can a person or organisation (or society) ever have the right to with threat of violence expropriate your information?

If you answer yes to *that* question, you no longer have any right to complain about for example doubleclick or echelon-ish schemes.

My thoughs are information. Are they free too? Am I a bad guy when I choose to keep some of them for myself? I might have written something positive about my country. I would very much want the (legal) means to react if I was quoted out of context on a Nazi site.

Hobbex, you have made many good posts, but I think you are going a bit far here. The purpose of copyright *is* to protect the artist or innovator. The artist is in his/her full right to give up their rights, either by GPL-ing (or similar) or by selling out to a distributor. The problem is that there are not enough "good" distributors to tackle the megacorps.

The way to fight (MP|RI)AA and their clueless|evil likes is *not* by forcing them to free information. It is to demonstrate how flawed their business model is. Continuing down the path of the RIAA here will make consumers *and* artists lose and find alternative ways. How long do you think they will survive as middlemen of a vacuum?

Let the artists free their information because they *want* to, not because *you* want them to.