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Sony CEO Proposes "Guardrails For the Internet"
testadicazzo writes "Micheal Lynton, the guy who said 'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.' has posted an editorial at the Huffington Post titled Guardrails for the Internet, in which he defends his comment, and suggests that just as the interstate system needs guardrails, so too does the information superhighway. The following is pretty indicative of the article: 'Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is 'beyond store hours' and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want. Freedom without restraint is chaos, and if we don't figure out some way to prevent online chaos, the quantity, quality and availability of the kinds of entertainment, literature, art and scholarship we need to have a healthy, vibrant culture will suffer.'"
Do you mean Cue?
This is a very good point. Sony squandered the moral highground a long time ago.
About 8 years ago the CEO of Fox Media gave a keynote at Comdex on this topic. What they wanted was something like the trusted computing initiative. Moreover what he wanted was a partnership with IT and broad support from the developer / hardware communities. He realizes that the IT people by and large support the free exchange of information and thus undermine this partnership.
His feeling was that there were potentially hundreds of thousands to millions of jobs in IT supporting a massive customized entertainment system, that could exist if and only if the medium was relatively safe.
I'm not sure that with Web 2.0 another alternative, the return of the amateur, isn't the direction we are heading in instead.
The title for the article is wrong and misleading, probably on purpose since Sony bashing seems to be the hottest thing a zealot can do these days.
The guy who made the comment is not Sony CEO (Howard Stringer is) but CEO of Sony Pictures the movie company. Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony Pictures, Sony Music etc. are different companies, and fairly independent too.
The actual CEO of Sony has very different views about the Internet and it's possibilities.
Well sneakernet was far and wide in its reach. Because the sneakers used were on the feet of USPS and other postal systems. We used to copy tapes and send them around to people. Also get them from people. I am sure it has grown since the web, but don't think that piracy was a blip before. There was plenty. And international.
He's right in that people have a "give it to me now" attitude, but he's wrong in saying that people are unwilling to pay for it.
If people want it now, and you want to make money from them, then make it available to them now. People will pay if you give them what they want.
I have happily paid to rent movies online through iTunes. Why? Because it is very convenient. I wanted to see something now and didn't want to leave the house to get it. iTunes delivered and I paid for the convenience. When what I want to see is not available to purchase (for example, most TV shows are not available through iTunes in Canada), I have to turn to the free alternatives.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
- Robert Heinlein, Life Line, 1939
The actual CEO of Sony has very different views about the Internet and it's possibilities.
Then he or she better speak up quickly, because this Lynton guy is tarnishing the brand.
There is no doubt, or at least I hope, that there will arise a new system that will allow people to, in some way shape or form, pay those that produce literature, music or other forms of entertainment or art.
I've taken to using Randall Munroe as an example. He gives his comics away for free, and seems to make a living from appearance fees and merchandising. Then there's this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-sufficient_webcomics
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
...after this little gem:
And my point is this: the major content businesses of the world and the most talented creators of that content -- music, newspapers, movies and books -- have all been seriously harmed by the Internet.
Those who haven't adapted have found themselves seriously harmed, much as buggy-whip manufacturers were seriously harmed by the automobile.
That is: The fact that he included newspapers makes it quite clear just how out of touch he is. Newspapers are obsolete.
Similar criticisms could be leveled against those other categories -- for instance, Sony Music may have been hurt, but music in general, and especially indie music, has an unprecedented opportunity in the Internet.
But why bother, when he clearly doesn't get it about newspapers? He's writing a blog, and he doesn't get it about newspapers?
Some of that damage has been caused by changing business models (the FTC just announced an inquiry into the impact of new media on the newspaper industry). But the primary culprit is piracy.
Yes, I'm sure newspapers have been harmed by piracy. Can you cite a single example?
I am no Luddite.
Then it would be a good idea to have some balls and retract your statement saying that nothing good comes from the Internet. You sure as hell sound like a Luddite to me.
that the Internet should be left to develop entirely unfettered and unregulated.
Copyright does not disappear on the Internet. But just what are you suggesting here?
In no other realm of our society have we encountered so widespread and consequential a failure to put in place guidelines over the use and growth of such a major industry.
This coming form the CEO of a company which deliberately put DRM on CDs that strongly resembled spyware, that made their legitimate customers' computers slower, less secure, and occasionally did things like broke their drivers...
Buddy, it's not the Internet that needs guidelines. It's Sony, and other large corporations which seem to subscribe to the view that when you're big enough, you can do whatever you want.
I'm not talking here about censorship, taxation or burdensome government restrictions. I'm talking about reasonable boundaries, "rules of the road," that can help promote the many positive attributes of Internet technology while curtailing its hugely damaging effects.
Please explain how you can provide one without the other.
In the 1950's, the Eisenhower Administration undertook one of the most massive infrastructure projects in our nation's history -- the creation of the Interstate Highway System.
Sounds like someone took the "Information Superhighway" analogy a bit too far.
But unlike the Internet, the highways were built and operated with a set of rational guidelines. Guard rails went along dangerous sections of the road. Speed and weight limits saved lives and maintenance costs. And officers of the law made sure that these rules were obeyed.
Officers of the law don't have to violate privacy or other fundamental rights in order to do so. And the results save lives, not dollars. More, they save our lives, not the dollars of Sony.
Because actually I'm a guy who wants to see lots of good things come from the Internet.
Ah, there's the retraction. How about a little mea culpa?
I mean, I know it's hard. I know you, as a CEO, have a mental block against this. But just repeat after me: I. Was. Wrong.
But it's not going to happen the way it should if we do not act now to safeguard the fruit of our world's most imaginative and talented minds.
It is already happening quite the way it should -- open source software is a great example of this -- precisely because there aren't r
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Sony stockholders should take heed. They have a guy that lacks vision running the show. He clearly believes in boxing in, rather than thinking outside the box.
Great works of art, literature, music etc are far more often created by the impecunious than the wealthy.
How true this is. The greatest artists of the past, Mozart, Bach, Shakespeare, worked for a pittance comapred to what artists make nowadays. And contrary to the argument made that we have to feed the rich more vast sums of money so they keep on producing; the volume of output of am impoverished Mozart or Bach was enormous compared to the output of the pampered rich artists of today. And with a higher quality level.
This ad space for rent.
They can't boycott those opinions.
Sure they can. Nobody can keep a moron from babbling, but you also don't have to repeat what he says if it's clearly lunacy.
Did you also think it was censorship when the New York Times refused to publish John McCain's editorial?
Anyway, to revisit another error in your logic,
The GP wants the Huffington Post to censor the opinions of Sony's CEO.
No, he never said that. The Huffington Post has ever right to publish whatever drivel its editors want to push. He's simply pointing out that he, and the rest of us, have every right to boycott it, and pointing out that given its track record we might consider doing so.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.