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The Many Battle Fronts of Content Owners
museumpeace writes "This community constantly chews on stories like the first sale doctrine and the endless maneuvering of RIAA, MPAA, follies of DMCA and DRM in general. I think of each of those stories as like trying to make sense of a particular earthquake. In the Huffington Post, blogger Jonathan Handel succinctly lays out six tectonic market and technology forces that provide a map for all of this. Sample his point #5, the media is the money: 'Fifth is market forces in the technology industry. Computers, web services, and consumer electronic devices are more valuable when more content is available. In turn, these products make content more usable by providing new distribution channels. Traditional media companies are slow to adopt these new technologies, for fear of cannibalizing revenue...'"
But I loved that huge headline on the article: "Vanilla Ice Arrested."
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
- Movie ticket sales at record high.
- Cable company reports record sales.
- Digital sales boost music industry.
Should I go on?He may be correct about newspapers declining, but the other points I believe are false.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
is often used, like the phrase "paradigm shift" to give oomph to other wise boring corporate blather
however, in this case, the term disruptive technology is entirely functional: the internet is completely destroying the music industry
the book industry and the movie industry are standing in handcuffs on the stairs to the guillotine, helplessly watching their brethren being beheaded. they watch in disbelief as the cheering masses they used to lord over relish the sight of the bloodsport of their demise
i'm sorry, but a free and open network where any media can be transmitted effortlessly and without interception is not a business opportunity. its a replacement for an industry based on distribution. people keep talking about the fact that the music industry could have gotten in front of changing technology and used it to their advantage, rather than change taking place without them while they sat in denial. i have the contrary opinion: i think the music industry would never have been able to get in front of this steamroller
they were never able to, no matter how much time they had to prepare. there is simply no way for the music industry to harness the internet to their continued existence. the internet, the substance of it, is simply anathema to what they do: charge a fee for music distribution. the internet is simply replacing them. effortless free distribution has no economics too it. there's no money to be made
of course there is money to be made in related industries: concerts, advertising tie-ins, band and brand building, etc. but anything having to do with distributing media is simply a free advertising platform, nothing more. the anicllary businesses is what the music industry will morph into, a decimated diminished form of its former self
the only way the music industry could survive unaltered by the internet is to invent a time machine and go back to the 1960s and murder the arpanet researchers. you cannot harness that which means your doom. asking or expecting the music industry to get in front of technological change and make it work for them is like asking the incan and aztec nobility to get in front of the spanish conquistadors and use them to their advantage. as in: no way that's going to happen
your doom is your doom. music distribution conglomerates are simply a business model for the historical dustbin. there is no other way to interpret what the internet means to them. the internet is not a "business challenge" for them to meet with fast footwork and fancy innovative thinking. it is simply an appointment with death. and i will be mourning their passing just as soon as i get over my shock and pain over the passing of the dtuch east india company. as in: who cares. the world keeps turning, life keeps changing. its a done deal. the story is over. goodbye sony bmg, bertelsmann, et al. buh bye. stop banging on your coffin. your dead. realize it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you want to describe a feeling of comfort and satisfaction, by all means say you are "content", but using it as a noun to describe written and other works of authorship is worth avoiding. That usage adopts a specific attitude towards those works: that they are an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money. In effect, it treats the works themselves with disrespect.
Those who use this term are often the publishers that push for increased copyright power in the name of the authors ("creators", as they say) of the works. The term "content" reveals what they really feel. (See Courtney Love's open letter to Steve Case (search for "content provider" in that page. Alas, Ms. Love is unaware that the term "intellectual property" is also misleading.)
However, as long as other people use the term "content provider", political dissidents can well call themselves "malcontent providers".
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If companies won't provide the goods the market (read:the population) desires, then someone will. And if necessity is the mother of invention ... and the market isn't supplying what 'we' want - then someone will find it necessary to modify the offerings of various companies to fit our 'needs'.
... then don't complain when people use alternatives (legal or not!)
Plain and simple, if you aren't supplying a product that people want
What has happened is a complete disconnect between the content producers and the consumers. At least most of the content producers view their material as something extremely valuable that took their time, energy and creativity to produce. Consumers are looking at it thinking that anyone could produce this, maybe even their neighbor in his garage.
The problem as the article points out, is there too much, too low quality and too easily sampled content out there. In this glut we have Darwin Reedy (of American Idol fame) and every other self-produced, self-promoted "artist" out there thinking they are what the world has been waiting for. Too much!
So you have a truely talented artist or performer and their stuff is dumped in the bin with all the rest. We've moved beyond the point where people are looking at professionals for guides to quality. Instead, we're looking at blogs and overloaded paid shills and seeing that they have no monopoly on the truth.
Where does this go? Well, content has zero value today is a good start. If you are thinking of a career in something involving creativity, forget it - it isn't a career but only a hobby. Copyright is probably dead because it is hoping we will respect something as a treasure when it is clear it has no value. Software, books, movies and music are now going to be created by unprofessional folks that will occasionally turn out a gem. But there aren't going to be any more reviewers or awards that mean anything so they will likely be overlooked.
Think of it as the open source revolution for content. Most of it, like open source software, will be unfinished and unpolished. Sometimes, there will be something great that comes of it.
But the fact that will remain is that no matter how great it is, the value will still be zero.
I don't understand.
Where's my car analogy?
Or tubes... tubes I can understand...
Well, everyone agrees that there is not much of a future for drm'd music, and that the music industry has to get used to this.
How long until video games are all downloaded without drm?
Everyone agrees that sonybmg/warner music/capitol are dying.
What about EA, epic games, activision and all the rest?
Are video game companies on their way out too?
Will video game companies make their money off of t-shirts and merchandise sales in the future? W
What about software companies? Should Microsoft make its profits primarily from from t-shirt and merchandise sales? And Steve Balmer touring and dancing around?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc
The music industry doesn't really matter, but the decline of newspaper reporting is important to society. There are too few reporters out there digging. Bloggers don't help; they're mostly mouthing off, not out gathering unpublished information.
Call your local newspaper and ask them how many full time reporters they have on the street. If they have ten, you're very lucky. There are very few newspapers left with big reporting staffs, and it shows.
News is what someone doesn't want published. All else is publicity.
This matters. Who's going to the city council meeting and reporting when they do something stupid? Who's tracking the state legislature? Who didn't report that FEMA's director was out to lunch before Katrina? What's not being reported now that's going to lead to big trouble in a year or two?
Every day... six billion people pay nothing for the air they inhale.. so by this writer's logic... we all find oxygen to be valueless. Every day, a billion children say "I love you daddy"... and the father does not fork-over a per-statement fee... obviously he does not value the experience. Every day, there a pleasurable experiences that make life worth-living... yet do not entail a cash transaction.
No No No Sir,... content is valued as highly as ever before... what is NOT regarded as value any longer.. are the jack-bob's who try to make eighteen-layers of mark-up on SOMEBODY ELSE'S creativity!!!
There are a thousand fat old white-guys in downtown NY and LA... are earmarked for obsolescence... and yet writers will always write, dancers will dance, painters will paint... because God lit up their soul with a spark that must be expressed.
Considering the advocacy of left-wing politics so common in Hollywood, it puts a big smile on my face to see people disregarding the IP rights of Hollywood studios. There is something disgustingly hypocritical about an industry where many of the leading lights lionize men like Fidel Castro and his revolution, and then demand respect for their property rights. It's like a bastardization of the Simpsons episode where the aliens take over both parties: Communism for some, property rights for others.
because we both recognize the fundamental change here: you can't charge anymore. you label as "still in business" what i label as "morph into a lesser self" but this is a trivial semantic meaning versus pragmatic meaning difference
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'd rephrase this argument somewhat: "Content producers", read musicians, novelists and reporters do spend a lot of time and effort producing things, and do have a reasonable expectation of being able to feed their family as a result. I doubt that most "consumers" think that anyone could produce this, but instead just want something for nothing. There are an awful lot of "fans" who don't what to support the artists that they supposedly love. Admittedly, when you talk to these people you often get nasty anti-artist rants.
The tragedy of all of this is that if authors, reporters and musicians can't earn a living, then there won't be any new books, or good news coverage, or highly professional music. Such a world is very sad indeed, and not one that I'd enjoy living in.
I always interpreted "Content is king" as a mantra which indicates that content is a value-add for devices and platforms. Having content available for your device/platform makes it more valuable, but that doesn't mean that the content itself has intrinsic value.
You can consider content support to be like software support. There's an inherent network effect in having each for a platform, which drives consumers to it, which in turn drives more of the original draw. But (text/video/audio) content has more immediate appeal to people since they don't need to ask "What would I use it for?" So the Web, the iPod with iTunes, desktop OSes with media players out of the box, the DVD, and the MP3 format have been dominant categories of consumer goods.
The problem is that companies who produce content want to maximize profits, in doing so maximizing restrictions, in doing so minimizing availability, in doing so reducing the intrinsic value of platforms which invest time and money to support them, and more severely reducing the intrinsic value of platforms which are locked out from them. Thus we get Vista, a stream of failed online music stores, and artificial barriers to FOSS operating system adoption (mmm, tasty karma).
Piracy isn't intrinsically good, but breaking format lockdown on media increases the value of platforms and devices across the board. This is why content is king.
Making a video game at the level of technical sophistication of modern games is very expensive. There are indie games, but there do not seem to be very many. A game involves a lot of work on coming up with a good concept, tweaking gameplay, writing an engine, creating graphics, creating music, etc. This requires a team with a shared goal. Of course, there are flash games and various simply (usually 2D) games, which are one-man efforts and are good games, but they are on a different scale.
On the other hand, nearly everyone can make music and bands are very common, so the general public entering into the music distribution business is not a large leap: it is just a move from playing at just local places or for fun to recording and posting it on the internet.
There's a barrier to entry for bloggers who do want to do legwork. They don't get the same access as reporters. Can they get into the city council meetings to report on them? Council meetings, probably, but there's lots of other places they can't.
As I said in another message: the question isn't whether bloggers will have to do the work reporters, the question is will they be allowed to?
...with the disruptive technology of your lower-case-only keyboard?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
As for Microsoft, they could take the example of Red Hat. Every line of code that Red Hat makes is absolutely free for the taking. No one has to pay for it. In fact, you could compete with them directly with their own code. But people still pay Red Hat for the support they offer, which is better than you could do as their competitor if all you did was use their code. You might be a great Linux guru, but you probably don't have the clout and resources to get as many kernel changes as they do if a customer needed it.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Over all a good article, but could have mentioned other things the content companies are doing which devalue the content they have. Take movies. I used to enjoy going to the movies. Now it easily costs $30 per person (much higher admission and exorbitant charge for food) to be jammed into a theater of inconsiderate people and then herded out as quickly as possible so the next showing can start. While I'm waiting for the movie to start, I'm bombarded with advertising telling me how great of time I'm having or telling me I need to buy something. It's no longer worth it.
For those that don't know, The studios (content owners) take almost all of the admission revenue and the theaters (content packaging) make their money on concession and other sales. In an effort to squeeze every last cent they can out of the goer (customer) they've lost many customers. To try to subsidize revenue, 'lost' from customers they drove away, they squeeze some more, driving even more away (snowball). How many mega-plexes have you seen closed down. Many drive-ins still offer a good experience for a reasonable price.
When a customer no longer finds going to the theater worth the cost/hassle, they might wait till it is released on DVD. If they still remember they wanted to see a particular movie they buy the DVD, pop it in their player and are blasted with an advertisement telling them not to steal the DVD they just paid for. They then have to wait through another notices about not copying the movie before waiting through the same notice in another language.
Do the studios actually believe that bombarding someone, who already paid, with irritating threats and warnings is going to increase the odds they will spend hard earned money the next time they want to see a movie?
Now it's the next time and wouldbe customer has to decide it they want to
1. Spend more money, which is harder to come by, to be inundated with advertisements and other baggage, just to have a less enjoyable experience seeing the movie. OR
2. Download it where they won't have all the other bothers. They may think it's wrong, but it doesn't matter as much to them because the perceived victim (the studio) was trying to take advantage of them and the the RIAA is mean/greedy the way they aggressively go after poor college students
The more the content provider does to irritate the customer, the more the customer will cease to be a customer.
I used to be one of the movie business' biggest customers. Now I go hiking, and the Internet gets the blame.
Not so much dancing, but I'd certainly pay to see Balmer throwing chairs at a WWE or UFC match.
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