Slashdot Mirror
On the Time Preference for Information...
LL asks: "Altering the price of digital content is a common tactic to capture the time-preference characteristics of consumers (e.g. movie tickets for immediate first releases down to free-to-air a couple of years later). We would all like to get the latest and greatest, but are people willing to tolerate restrictions such as paying more for music that they can share with friends? The polarization of views from the share everything (FSF) to everyone is a selfish individual (digital distribution industry) is being contested through new business models on the Internet with players such as (AOL+InterTrust)|Sony willing to experiment with novel and more subtle forms of control. However, will prosumers protest over the increasing technological obsolescence if they purchase music/software and find out a few years later their hardware is not supported and their music/software collections become worthless? Are we buying a life-time's right to own or merely licensing access for a short time? If an individual/company releases/sells stuff, whether GPL or EULA, should they explicitly warn people of the downstream implications (e.g. if we discontinue hardware support you will be forced to pay for software upgrade fees)? Curious minds would like to know if there is a fairer system."
The thing to remember here is that our physical characteristics don't change. We can only perceive 44Khz worth of audio, and no more than 45 frames per second of video, and as long as our rods are happy, resolution beyond that is wasted. So technological revolutions just change the way it's sold, or the usability of the technology (e.g. nobody ever invented a Walkman 12" vinyl disk player). The content doesn't lose quality (yeah, yeah, audiofiles can supposedly tell the difference between copper and gold connectors, just as they can supposedly tell the difference between transistor and tube amps, and between vinyl, cd's and mp3's. I ain't no audiofile, and yes, we're still in a parenthetical comment.)
-russ
p.s. It's supposed to be a pun, but if you don't think it's punny, don't laugh.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
In search of a fairer system, I think we have to start from the beginning - and that is, we do need to rethink what copyrights really mean.
The problems you have outlined are all very real, and they are all because someone is using the copyright issue to squeeze money out of the people.
I read somewhere (perhaps in
Think of it, if in the current use of copyright laws were used back in the era of Beethoven or Bach, those of us who enjoy the symphonies of those great master would have to fork out $$$ for our enjoyment ! One can't even play the ta-ta-ta-taaa (of the 5th symphony) without violating Beethoven's copyright !
And that's what the people in the future era would be facing, if we allow our copyright laws to be altered to suit the greedy lawyers.
Hopefully one day someone will get to their senses and stop all these madness.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
i think the biggest problem is that many view the whole IP situation as an either/or one shot deal.
Unfortunately, it's not so simple. Courts have ruled that reselling CD's is ok - i can go down to my local Recycle Records and sell them a Metallica CD (not that i own any) for $5. At that point - they can sell it to whoever they want for however much they want. Metallica doesn't get to see one red cent. In this instance, it's easy to argue that you're paying for the CD - or you're paying for your right to own that music. 'nuff said.
On the other hand, you've got programs like Napster. I rip that very same Metallica CD and listen to it on mp3 - everyone's happy. But the minute I distribute any of those copies to friends, or anyone else for that matter...the RIAA throws a shit-fit. And we've already seen what Lars thinks of the good ole Nap.
So it pretty much boils down to two questions. 1)Are you paying for the music, or the right to listen to the music. and 2)If you're actually paying for the media....do you have the right to do whatever the hell you want with that media.
What does this have to do with legacy media? Vampire Hunter D perhaps? - Simple....the later cost shouldn't be a factor. 10 years after a movie comes out, everyone should have rights to view that movie for free. 10 years after a song comes out, everyone should have rights to listen to that song for free. Fuck royalties. If you're Don MacClean and you haven't written a good song in 20 years - you should either A)Get your fatass up and write another one or B)Get a new profession. Should i still get royalties off a shell script or a program i coded for a company 10 years ago? Hell NO!
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
First of all, I'll agree with those who say that this question makes very little sense. From what I can gather, there are two main thrusts to this question. The first involves "intellectual property" and the second involves devaluation. Both questions can be answered simply: the market decides.
/. ...
First of all, you can theoretically charge whatever you want for music/movies/etc. I say theoretically because nobody in their right mind will pay $80 for a Metallica CD. The market has pretty much decided that people will pay around $12-$18 bucks for a CD on the average. Now, with Napster, the market is undergoing a sea change. Digital distribution means that the consumer doesn't have to pay $12-$18 for the same music. Now, there has to be a balance between free (Napster) and ripoff (RIAA). It's all a matter of time. Somehow, people will figure out how to make money of MP3 and Napster. Those that charge too much will get axed out by consumers, those who charge too little will starve to death. In the end, the market will tend towards equilibrium until the next Napster comes along to change the system. So basically, any commerical enterprise in a free market system is driven by the consumer. People will pay what they want, be it a micropayment for a single song, or $80 for one of those Diablo II collector's edition sets. (One wonders if Blizzard knew that everyone in their dog would buy this game, so the jacked up the price $10-$20 above normal knowing that the consumers would still take it.)
Now, the second part of the question. Obviously, you're not going to pay as much for an old Abba CD as you would for Britney Spears or whatever moron is on the top 25 this week. Everything devaluates unless it's wine or Renoirs. Once again, the market is going to decide what price they're willing to pay. That's why they have bargain bins.
Now, in the case of hardware and other equipment, that's also a real no-brainer. If you're buying from Bob's House of Komputers, yeah, you're probably not goning to get any support after the three second lifespan of the business. Once again, caveat emptor. That's why name brands are always arond. Sure, you may pay up the wazoo for a Sony, but you know that they're going to be around for a while.
Finally, here's the gratuitous Open Source plug. Because older hardware has probably already been hacked, you can usually find OSS drivers for it. Yeah, they won't be shiny and new, but they'll work, and they might even have some developers still working on them. In the end, even an old 486 has value. My POS 486 built by companies that no longer exist still serves as my OpenBSD firewall. Once again, the market (me) places value in a commodity (that POS 486) based on what they perceive it to be worth (not much, but I'll still pay a few bucks for it).
So, now I've managed to praise both market-driven laissez-faire capitalism and Open Source in one diatribe. All I need to do is put in a plug for gun rights (NRA4EVER) and mention how in the post-Columbine world geeks are perceived as social outcasts and I'll have managed to impersonate ESR *and* Jon Katz. If I only had a Beowulf cluster of petrified young actresses pouring hot grits down my pants I could be a one-man
The difference between reselling that Metallica CD and sharing it with a few thousand of your closest net-friends is that in the former case there still is only the one CD, while in the latter case thousands of copies have been made and distributed. These are two very different situations from the perspective of those who assert rights to the recording (and profit from those rights). That's not to say that there is anything "natural" about a one-medium, one-copy rule. But that is pretty much the condition under which the current system of music distribution has evolved, for good or for ill.
The problem with a purely free-for-the-downloading approach to music is that there is no money in it for those who make the recordings. Recording music would be pretty much a hobby activity, or at best one subsidized by musical performances. And making good recordings isn't cheap, with $1500 microphones, $40,000 mixing consoles, and so on. True, digital technology is going to reduce some of these costs a bit, through hard-disk recording and the like, and some forms of music (computer- based electronica, for instance) are especially cheap to produce this way. But recording live performances is always going to be labor- and gear-intensive, with at least a certain amount of expensive equipment and personnel required to produce a quality result. All-free, all-the-time isn't good for music or musicians, or ultimately, music-listeners. (And those luddites who feel that such a situation will benefit live music enough so as to be a positive trade-off -- save your arguments for later.)
So the question boils down to this: how can music recording make enough money to be self-sustaining when anyone can make copies at will, for free? The fact is, it can't. And unlike free software, where services to, with, and about a free product provide ample economic opportunities, a recording musician can't make much money with a free recording.
The RIAA members may grossly overcharge for their services, but at least sometimes musicians get recorded and paid. The 'net provides an alternative to what the RIAA does in manufacturing and distributing recorded media, and at much less cost; they want to be able to continue to make fat profits on a system that is rapidly becoming antiquated until they find a way to fill their money pipeline via electronic distribution. You and I don't expect, or want, that to happen. But the fact remains that free distribution won't pay for artists and it won't pay for recordings to be made. What will replace the RIAA members, and how will it make its money? Answer the latter question, and the former will take care of itself.
I personally don't think that having individuals rent music is a particularly viable solution to financing recordings -- I just don't see any enabling technology on the horizon that the average music listener would accept. And that's what this discussion boils down to. But I could be wrong: this could be a very fruitful discussion. It's not going to go anywhere if we keep focused on RIAA vs. Napster, however -- I don't see either of them as representing viable solutions.