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Fox CEO Says Tech & Media Should Work Together
An anonymous reader writes "An article running on cnn.com talks about how Peter Chernin, CEO of Fox and COO of News Corp., says media and tech companies should work together in the best interests of both industries. It's an interesting new angle for them anyway, with the point exentuated by George Lucas (of American Graffiti fame!) showing up to say 'there is no free lunch'."
Piracy in all its forms is not a technical problem, but a social problem.
Technical solutions to social problems will never succeed. Build a better lock? Someone will build a better lockpick. Unless the social problem is dealt with, the technical solutions will continue to fail.
But I fear that the Entertainment Industry's idea of "cooperation" is saying that Technology needs to be crippled to prevent the Entertainment industry from becoming irrelevant. No compromise.
As I've said here several times, (paraphrased from Steven P. Jobs himself), Piracy is a social problem, not a technological one. If content can be seen and heard, it can be copied, no matter what technological measures are put in place. If banning people from ever making any copies will never work, why not concentrate more on convincing people that they shouldn't make illegal copies, and making them want to buy legitimate versions even in the face of easy piracy?
The smartest thing Chernin did was to get geek faves like Lucas and Jackson to speak on his cause's behalf. The second smartest thing was to play up the fact that the entertainment industry is more than just the "misguided artists" and the "evil fat cat suits," but includes all the blue collar workers found in any "normal" industry.
So many times I read about the evil **AA's, as if people don't realize these trade industry groups exist to do the bidding, and often the dirty work, of the creative entities like Lucas. Valenti and Rosen are paid to be targets for the heat-seekers so that the creative brands aren't tarnished by politics.
Chernin wisely realized -- and I've no doubt others in the entertainment industry who will be speaking publicly on this topic will realize also -- that Joe Sixpack doesn't give a rat's ass about some distribution exec in an expensive suit, but let the creator of Boba Fett get up there in a black turtleneck, and the crowd melt likes butter.
Now that the gloves are really off in the fight for public opinion, this gets interesting...
The real problem is the Federal Court System
is far too slow, expensive, and overpowered
for suing an individual pirate. What good is
it to sue "WzDood345" for pirating $500 worth
of music, if it costs $500,000 in legal fees
and he/she just files for bankruptcy anyway?
This isn't just a problem for the big media
companies: it makes it impossible for indie
content creators to sue pirates. Sony could
in theory afford to waste $500,000 to make
an example of a pirate. A garage band can't.
Instead of draconian laws or orwellian DRM
hardware, I suggest we need a simplified
Federal Small-Claims Copyright Court, where
copyright infringents less than (insert $$)
could be handled pro-se (without lawyers).
Then you, or Lars Ulrich, or anyone else
could fill out some paperwork, explain the
case to the judge in plain english, and
collect $500 from WzDood345 for pirating
your stuff.
>;k
- All open source digital TV and Software Defined Radio applications will be illegal
- No digital output technology may be incorporated into DTV devices (including commodity general-purpose PCs) without Hollywood's permission
- No digital removable media technology may be incorporated into DTV devices (including commodity general-purpose PCs) without Hollywood's permission
Setos described this as a "well-mannered marketplace." This is the kind of co-operation that Fox wants from technology: roll over, bare your belly, and build only those devices that Hollywood grants permission for.I'm getting really tired of people equating copying information with 'theft.' Copyright breach it may be (an entirely different kettle of fish, as anyone who understand copyright knows), but theft it is not. The two circumstances are not even remotely similar enough to warrant such a comparison, and anyone who argues otherwise is committing a False Analogy fallacy. (Going into a store and "five-finger discounting" the actual CD is both theft and copyright breach, just to be sure we're clear on that.)
Nothing has been "taken," nothing is "missing," and certainly nothing is "gone" when someone makes a digital copy of something -- unlike Chernin's False Analogy argument about dresses from Wal-Mart.
That's not to say that copyright breach isn't some kind of crime, or that it's not wrong -- but, again, it's not "theft." And it's certainly more defensible (under certain circumstances -- notably our vanishing "Fair Use" and "Public Domain" provisions) than theft.
As a final, waspish parting shot to the point that "all this theft is destroying the industry," Chernin should talk to "Frisky Dick" Richards, who plays "Violent J" in the Insane Clown Posse, which actively encourages people to download, copy, share, and, yes, even steal their work. (He might also try talking to Ron "Hitler" Barrassi of TISM about the same subject, if he thinks he can stand it. I want to sell tickets to that event!) Weirdly enough, ICP has two platinum records and a few gold records to their credit -- with NO airplay or video play -- and seem to be living proof that Chernin and all who sail with them are also committing a Slothful Induction fallacy. (In short, the evidence says Chernin et al's argument isn't true, but they believe it anyway.)
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
By keeping the price of DVD's reasonable (thanks to the fact they're following the sell-through model of video sales more or less pioneered by the Buena Vista Home Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company), they've sent DVD sales literally through the roof.
DVD's could have been quite expensive initially due to the high cost of mastering the movie onto DVD disc, but now that you can master a professional-quality DVD movie on a dual-CPU Power Macintosh machine, it's small wonder why costs are relatively low.
I think the MPAA's Jack Valenti--unlike the RIAA folks--seems to a have clue about the economics of media piracy, and by pricing DVD movies at a low cost the economic incentive to do piracy is very low. If the RIAA understood the economics of media piracy they should price album-length audio CD's at US$11 per disc, which would cut down the incentive to pirate music quite dramatically.