The Customer is Always Wrong

McSpew writes "Hackers author Steven Levy so far is the only person in the mainstream press to pick up on the the travesty of the SSSCA hearings. He points out that only the media giants could be so stupid as to think treating their customers like criminals will increase sales." Steven's a very smart guy - and very well said on this issue.

Comments

Give thanks to Democrats, Republicans, Greens, etc

[dada21]

Here's yet another reason why increasing the size and power of Government will only deteriorate the rights of the common man. These anti-speech measures will only increase in number as long as the average person votes for the three parties above.

Advocating liberty means supporting the decrease of big government. Stop asking for handouts, no matter what type (corporate subsidies, welfare, social security, etc) because those handouts come with reductions in our rights, like the big corporations want. If you want to end these ludicrous and obviously unconstitutional laws, then vote for the only party that advocates disassembling any law that is unconstitutional: the Libertarian Party.

I hate being a broken record, but ALL these laws (SSSCA, DMCA, etc) are unconstitutional, but as long as Congress is more powerful than the Constitution allows, they will never be repealed.

My view on copy protection: let manufacturers make an unbreakable copy protection scheme if they want. Let hardware developers get in bed with software developers. But DO NOT LET THEM have laws that prevent reverse engineering. Do let the free market consumer power choose between an encrypted uncopyable format, and possibly an open format advocated by another group of software publishers.

As long as we allow the RIAA and MPAA and other large organizations lobby Congress to overextend Congressional power, we'll always be victims. The free market works, but only if you get government out of it.

A real world example

[corren]

I hate to use Adult industry examples, but there is a very good example of taking advantage of a market instead of trying to shut it down.

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. was probably one of the most pirated companies in the history of media when it comes to original content. I don't know about you, but I've read hundreds of articles talking about Pamela Anderson or whoever being #1 on most search engines, etc etc.

So what did PEI do? They capitalized on the market. They didn't try to prevent you from copying JPG's and MOV's. They gave you a service so killer that it's not worth the time trying to pirate it. Most adult companies try and charge like $30 a month for a crap ass website with lousy content and slutty women.

Not Playboy. They charge like 6 bux a month. The price of a paper magazine. All of their playmates in an online archive. HUGE libraries of content. New features weekly if not daily.

Playboy recognized it could benefit from a potential source of huge revenue or it could be like the RIAA and MPAA and try to prevent it's content from being copied. By providing a service with such value at such a reasonable price point, I'm quite sure Playboy is making a killing.

I wish the RIAA and MPAA could pull their heads of out their respective a$$es and open their eyes to the REAL market they COULD capitalize on without screwing things for us: the consumers.

Re:If this had been done right...

[Lahjik]

One company that is doing this right is eFolkMusic, a collective of folk, celtic, bluegrass, and other musicians. They offer free downloads of mp3s in addition to other mp3s that you can buy. All of their free music is 100% legal because they and the artists have realized that giving away a few tracks will get me hooked and cause me to buy more cds or mp3s. I also know that when I buy an mp3 from this site, the artist is getting 50% of the price. They even offer mp3 "multipacks" wherein you prepay for mp3 credits at a price of 20 downloads for $14.97. I would be much more willing to pay $15 for a 20-track album that I create! Granted, this only works if you like more traditional music...but I offer up the site as a great example of a rather large and well-functioning music distribution model.

Re:it's not about piracy

[spitzak]

The point is that the RIAA can and will make all *recording* devices illegal. The will probably be done by introducing a new format, using the SSSCA to make manufacturing devices using old formats like CD and DVD illegal, and desigining the new format so it is impossible to record without a technique requiring mechanical pressing or otherwise massive scale manufacturing. Yes old formats will be with us, but for the majority of users there will be no workable method to get them into speakers and out as sound.

This is the only method that will really "stop" piracy. As long as recording devices are legal, a "pirate" can work on stripping enough of the copy controls that the recording device is fooled into thinking the sound is a new live recording. But if there is no device that will record any sound and turn it into a form that the average user can play, it will completely control copies!

Well, it will stop the average user from being a "pirate". Piracy for money will always be worth enough that somebody will break into a factory, steal one of the machines, and pirate millions of copies. In fact piracy will become more lucrative and profitable and will probably be greater than before because the real disks will have their prices inflated to the maximum the market will bear.

It also has the side effect that you *cannot* record music without a recording industry contract! This is of course the real purpose of this, but they are going to scream "pirate" for years until everybody has been brainwashed to go along with this.