Why Make a Sequel of the Napster Wars?

6 writes "Cory Doctorow has an interesting article over at Information Week about Hollywood's strategy of suing sites such as YouTube. Says Doctorow: 'It's been eight years since Sean Fanning created Napster in his college dorm room. Eight years later, there isn't a single authorized music service that can compete with the original Napster. Record sales are down every year, and digital music sales aren't filling in the crater. The record industry has contracted to four companies, and it may soon be three if EMI can get regulatory permission to put itself on the block. The sue-'em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out plan was a flop in the box office, a flop in home video, and a flop overseas. So why is Hollywood shooting a remake?'"

Comments

Well

[spiritraveller]

So why is Hollywood shooting a remake?

Unlike the Napster case, Youtube has revenue sources (and Google can invest the additional funds needed to keep it afloat).

The studios, quite rightfully see a source of revenue there. It's not just a bunch of cheap bastards sharing amongst themselves. It's a multibillion dollar company making money off of THEIR content.

Should copyright just be abolished because we want free access to tv shows and movie clips?

Re:Well

[jc42]

Should copyright just be abolished because we want free access to tv shows and movie clips?

Nah; the copyright system should be abolished because it leads to our current mess in which a few giant companies use it to deprive the artists of their rightful income. We should toss such copyright laws, and devise a revised scheme that guarantees that the artists get most of the money.

Or we can continue along the path of zillions of skirmishes that hurt everyone, until it settles down to a new system. And hope that that new system can't find a new way to steal most of the artists' income and give it to a few fat cats who have a stranglehold on the distribution channels.

Curious

[David Hume]

Assume that the major movie studios produced high-quality full-length first run downloadable movies with no DRM whatsoever at a reasonable prices. (You define what is reasonable.) Any DRM-less format you prefer.

How many of you would "share" then with your friends? (By "share" I don't mean watch the movies with friends. I mean make copies of the movies for friends.) If so, how many friends?

Would you see anything wrong with posting your copy to an FTP site or the equivalent?

Would you see anything wrong sending copies to your closest 100 friends?

Just curious.

Re:Curious

[iluvcapra]

Not MANY people would upload their copy to TPB, but it only takes ONE.

Something movie distributors have in their favor is their exhibition system. Showing movies on a big, bright screen in a large room with a great sound system is significant added value. If you want to defeat movies as they are, you must defeat the movie theater, and if you want to do that, you have to:

1. Make home systems provide an equivalent technical experience on a common basis, in other words not a niche trade for cinephiles and AV hobbyists.
2. Figure out a better low-impact date for two people on a friday night than dinner and a night at the movies. A courtship date of watching movies at home just isn't the same. This is just a small example of a bigger point: going to the movies is a "lifestyle" thing, it provides an experience on top of the content. Selling a first-run movie over the internet would never compare, it'd be like buying a night at the club over the internet .
3. Change the directors and producers. I have many director friends, all young and trying to break in, but none of them are even remotely interested in making a film and putting on YouTube to tell their stories. Recording artists, musicians, etc. famously have always hated their labels, complaining about the quite abusive deal they get. Directors, Producers, actors and everyone involved in movies LOVES theaters, in marked contrast to how musicians feel about labels.

Just an opinion, but most people actively engaged in making commercial movies in Hollywood love the internet for promotion and secondary distro, but no business people, and crucially no artists, are talking about chucking the whole movie theater idea. Working in the status quo's favor as well, is the strong separation between commercial cinema, the clearly expensive star-studded vehicles that can be good or bad, but will generally be at least entertaining, and independent cinema, which can be more profound but often isn't, and is generally actively hostile to the idea of "entertaining" people (they regard mass entertainment in the way FOSS people regard configuration wizards).

Re:Curious

[iluvcapra]

It's a total sellout for the government to give away my freedom to them. If this was to mean that these movies weren't made, then boo fuckin' hoo. I'd rather there be less Hollywood movies and more freedom to copy than the situation we have today.

Do you oppose copyright as a general principle? Without copyright, there could be no GPL.

Bill Gates: It's a total sellout for the government to give away my freedom to copy the Linux kernel to Linus Torvalds. If this means nobody writes free software anymore, than boo fuckin' hoo. I'd rather there'd be less free software and more freedom for me to sell it to people, preferably with a cute little animated assistant to help configuration.

Re:Curious

[Bill Currie]

Without copyright, there would be no need for the GPL.

Collapse

[Anonymous Coward]

Shutting down Napster was a huge blunder for the record companies, leading to the collapse of the entire industry. Not to defend the record companies, which are relics destined for obsolescence, but I suspect that not shutting down Napster would have led to the industry's collapse as well.

Re:Napster, WTF? Hotline Servers

[smclean]

The original internet scene?

I'd actually began to mention BBSs and then erased it, because I figured if I start down that road, people are going to say, "Actually, it started with people copying each others punch cards."

No one can compete with FREE??

[Mononoke]

Eight years later, there isn't a single authorized music service that can compete with the original Napster.

Wow, you're right! Not a single legitimate online music retailer can compete with a company that paid $0 for the products it distributed. That's amazing!

You should teach an economics course or something!

Re:No one can compete with FREE??

[cronius]

I know you're kidding, but just a quick comment on that: Bottled water. Don't know how the water quality in the states are, but in Norway we have very high quality on the water that comes out of the tap. Personally I can't tell the difference between tap-water and bottled water if they're the same temperature. When Norwegian companies started selling bottled water, they we're laughed at. "There's no way you can compete with something that's free, that's just ridiculous." Today it's a strong business.

As for the movie/music industry: Service. Download all you want from itunes without DRM for $10 a month? Hell yes. There's no way TPB could compete with THAT, because the service you receive is so much better it would be well worth the price. A service is something people are willing to pay for, even though that same service could be received for free (by e.g. washing your own car etc).

Cory: It's called money

[samuel4242]

Now Napster was great for you, me, and all of other hepcats, but it kind of sucked for the artists and the recording companies. And yes, I know that the recording companies rip off the artists. But if Napster rips off the recording companies, then the artists are guaranteed to get nothing.

I personally like iTunes and the iTunes store. I don't mind the DRM and I re-rip the few songs I need to move. It's a pain, yes, but I think the price is fair. So I think iTunes is infinitely times better than napster because at least some money is headed in the right direction. Even if only 5% makes it through to the artists, thats an infinitely greater amount than Napster ever paid them.

Sheesh. I owe so much to the artists who've written songs that have gotten me through some tough times. 99 cents is nothing compared to the gifts they've given.

Re:Cory: It's called money

[kebes]

Now Napster was great for you, me, and all of other hepcats, but it kind of sucked for the artists and the recording companies.

But Cory's point was that Napster could have been transitioned into a wildly successful business, bringing cash to the recording companies. According to him:

Napster's plan was plausible. They had the fastest-adopted technology in the history of the world, garnering 52,000,000 users in 18 months -- more than had voted for either candidate in the preceding U.S. presidential election! -- and discovering, via surveys, that a sizable portion would happily pay between $10 and $15 a month for the service. What's more, Napster's architecture included a gatekeeper that could be used to lock out nonpaying users.

So if Napster had kept its tens-of-millions of users, and 50% of them were truly willing to pay $10/month, then that's billions of dollars a year that could have been pulled in. If that's not enough to support record companies and artists, then there is something seriously messed up with their businesses. The point is that users were willing to pay for the convenience of Napster: easy access to a massive catalog. The subscription model was also appealing to alot of people: you don't have to worry about how much you're downloading. There's a limit to how much music a person can listen to... so alot of people will actually end up spending more money on an $10/month subscription that they do on buying CDs. They will do so happily if the service suits their needs.

Cory believes there was a huge missed opportunity for the industry to re-invent itself, and make money in a new age.

The success of iTunes drives this point home: everyone knows you can get free copies of music from various websites. However people are willing to pay iTune prices for the convenience. The labels are still caught up in an old business model ("each copy a person listens to must be a trackable sale we have made") rather than accepting a new business model ("charge people a monthly fee for access to an exhaustive catalog").

it's generational

[circletimessquare]

it's very much about a bunch of old guys who ask their secretaries and assistants to send an email. they simply don't get it, where "it" is any technological innovation after the year 1990

these old mogul type guys are from an era when you DID solve the problems of piracy by suing someone. because in the good ol' days, piracy was done by some mafia dude with a cd press or vinyl press or a bunch of cassette decks in a warehouse or closet room somewhere, and there were about 6 pirates out there who were making any economic impact on their bottom line: a small group of slow easy targets, and it was easy to get the fbi to help you

now of course, anyone who can download a program and drag a file in to a folder is a "pirate". which is basically every single young, music hungry, technologically savvy, and, most importantly, POOR student... in the entire world

but the old guys just don't get that

the solution?

wait. the old geezers will just die off. the guys who succeed them in the boardroom will know what's up and what's down about the realities of the internet

give it a decade or so. these RIAA and MPAA lawsuits are obviously incredibly retarded. but your complaints about the obvious realities of today fall on deaf old ears

Why a Sequel?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the reasons (and I'm sure not the only one), is that there is no more Hollywood any more. Instead, there are huge corporate entities that also happen to own entertainment companies, like GE owning CBS, or Time/Warner/AOL.

Policy about intellectual property is the responsibility of corporate lawyers, and they have a very primitive world view. They assume that all ownership is like physical ownership. If you own a theater, someone pays you to sit in the seat. If you sell songs, you sell the physical media. They don't understand that this model is no longer valid, and they don't have the flexibility to change.

This is why Apple has succeeded with iTunes. Apple understands the new online world, and they have figured out how to make money. It's not surprising that a tech company would be able to succeed, and old line traditional companies would fail.

Another side of the lawyer mentality is that you can only win by suing people. For some people in the law, not suing is like not breathing. (Insert shark joke here.) They see that their business model is going down the tubes. (Insert 'series of tubes' joke here.) Their first and only reaction is to sue. Why are you surprised by this? They are doing what they were trained to do, and what they are very well paid to do.

Na[ster 2: Electric Boogaloo

[proverbialcow]

Because, as this summer has proven amply, the movie industry has temporarily run out of ideas and is only capable of producing sequels. Spider-man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Die Hard 4, Napster 2...

you insensitive clod

[circletimessquare]

i specifically remember trading brass gear assemblies that made pipe organs play the 1812 overture with others in the underground pirate charles babbage adding machine scene

you young whipper snappers and your pirate ragtime player piano paper scroll scene, you have it so easy today... YOU try hauling around 50 pounds of brass machinery under YOUR overcoat!

Re:Yeah free trumps "not"

[6]

True, cable and for that matter such channels as HBO were totally destroyed due to ABC, CBS, and NBC broadcasting their content free across the air.
Same thing happened with music. No one purchased records and tapes due to all that music broadcast over that free medium of radio.

What trumps everything is the basic building block of a business: customer value.
Companies that figure this out grow.
--- check it out thousands of video podcasts on your phone: www.mywaves.com ---

TFA is *not* about piracy vs. legal access

[gold23]

There seem to be a lot of people bitching about IP and copyrights, and "well of course the Napster kicked their butts -- it was free!"

But what Doctorow is saying is that both Napster then and YouTube now *want* to do deals with the copyright holders, but they only see a revenue stream coming from lawsuits (especially given Google's deep pockets). He points out that both the recording industry and cable television started out by poaching someone else's IP (sheet music and already-broadcast material, respectively), then doing a deal with the copyright holders after they were able to make money doing it.

Please, read the fine ar... oh, right.

The big problem

[DogDude]

The big problem is this. There's suddenly a shift in entertainment now, where people are simply not willing to pay relatively large amounts of money to relatively few people. Entertainment is everywhere, and there are tons of different kinds, and forms. So right now, nobody wants to pay $20 for a relative "hit" CD, so they're just taking the entertainment.

In the 20th century, when culture in the US, at least, was much more homogenic, stars like Elvis'es, Marilyn Monroe's, Beatles were more universally loved and demanded (paid for). Now, nobody is interested to that extent because there's so much more to see/hear/watch/read. Sure, a few hundred thousand kids may want to pay $5 for the new April Levigne CD, they're not interested enough to want to pay $20 for a CD.

Entertainers are simply not able to earn the money they used to make. Neither are the distribution company. We're seeing an overdue shift down in the amount of money that we are willing to pay for entertainment. Supply of entertainment shot through the stratosphere at the end of the 20th century, and demand merely shot through the roof increased with the population increase and populations joining the modern world (as far as entertainment is concerned).

All of this stuff that this article was about are simply the transitional pains. I predict that in 20 years, very few entertainers of any kind will be able to earn much more than say, a big city local television news personality. The days of Michael Jackson buying amusement parks and Elvis collection gold Cadillacs is over. The days of $20 music albums are over, too. The problem is that the large entertainment industry, as a whole, are going to go kicking and screaming, whether they're actors, musicians, or distribution companies (which are even less relevant now than the entertainers themselves).

The distribution companies do, of course, represent the entertainers demands for more money, of course. The problem for them is compounded by not only are peoples tastes diverging into more and more entertainment options, but people are especially not willing to pay for distribution. They're going the way of buggy whip makers.

What does this mean? It means that in 20 years, celebrities will be everywhere, but few will be massive, massive stars. It also means that they'll be more like actual, working people, and might have to work on their own distribution, if they want to make a good living from it.

Perez Hilton is a great early example of what most of tomorrow's celebrities will look like: organic, diverse, earning money by giving their "art" away for cheap or free, and making money from ads and sponsorships, while handling their own distribution straight to the people.

That's all people are willing to pay for. Why? Well, even if the distribution companies lock it down perfectly, it won't work. The demand isn't there. If you don't want to pay $20 to watch a shitty movie that you'll forget 10 minutes after you watch it, you can hop over to YouTube, and watch some rapidly improving, amateur stuff for free or cheap.

pickup basketball with old guys

[BewireNomali]

Ever play pickup basketball with old guys? I'm a run and gun type player myself - and the old timers neutralize all that with the ground and pound. They back up the whole way down the court at two meters an hour, talking shit the whole way while swatting at you when you try to steal the ball. You get overzealous, he threads a backdoor pass from the three point line to the basket for an easy layup. It you tap the ball away he cries foul and complains that the young guys are beating up on the warhorses. Or he'll pump fake you like 14 times until you give up and he banks in the shot. old guys ALWAYS use the glass.

the lawsuits are that old guy - taking a speedy process and slowing it down to their pace in order to give them time to catch up. they call fouls all the time and make the whole process generally unpleasant at times. But they are doing what they need to do to WIN.

pointing out that the lawsuit strategy failed is assuming that it was to attempt to deter change - it's not. Big companies are about slowing down the process and milking every dime they can out of it. Innovating is an interesting thing. For every innovator who succeeds, countless others fail for reasons other than technical viability. The smart thing to for large moneyed firms to do is to wait - let the innovators do their thing; when the market reacts in kind - bully into the market with dollars and positioning. It's the lion chasing off the hyenas after they've made the kill. The king of the jungle feeds off carrion something like 30% of the time.

I'm certain I'll get modded down for this, but the future of this business is not in selling music. What the internet has taught us is that content is devalued by an inability to secure exclusivity of access. The future of media is not ITUNES - that's another example of slowing down change. It is not change itself. It is still selling music. the paradigm shift is that they are not going to sell MUSIC at all.