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Doctorow Says Google & Amazon Stifle Progress
An anonymous reader writes "Google and Amazon are 'a danger to everyone involved in the creative industries' because they act as the intermediary between creators and audiences, says Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow. He warns that the corporate giants will 'only fear competition from other established giants ... companies whose character as gatekeepers of video distribution and discovery won't be substantially different.' The solution, he says, is to use copyrights to lower the cost of entering the market. 'For so long as copyright holders think like short-timers, seeking a quick buck instead of a healthy competitive marketplace, they're doomed to work for their gatekeepers,' he says."
The TLDR of it is that he thinks Google and Amazon are too awesome and will become the only way you get at things, thus giving them too much power.
Not that he thinks they'll abuse it, but he's sad that content creators act like an abused spouse hooking up with another abuser(monopoly/cartel) instead of finding a healthy relationship(using their almighty copyright to force fair percentages).
As most of them, deep down, wanting to feel like rockstars, they'll sell their rights to any company for a penny if it involves a signing tour and some groupies.
The only content creators that will get any fair shake are those writing books, lyrics, etc, as a profession instead of a passion. The real money is in writing the lyrics for the next popstar or doing market research to write the next "15 books and no end(or plot) in sight" series.
I have to disagree with TFA. Google and Amazon make it easier for the little guys to get noticed. It's true they act as intermediary, but they lower the entry cost that is normally associated with traditional publishing/marketing. ...and if you don't want to get noticed via Google or Amazon, go ahead and set up your site/service/product from scratch and hope that it get's noticed. It has worked for some!
On a personal note, my sister published her first book, and has played Amazon and Google asa well as traditional marketing, and is now her publisher's #1 seller. Her success is a combination of hard-work, traditional marketing (out of her own pocket) and playing the web.
J-F
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
Saying that Amazon and Google stifle innovation because they sit as an intermediary between creators and audiences is a bit like saying the Roman Catholic church stifles religion because a priest sits between the Creator and his followers.
It's more like the Roman Catholic church sits between the Faith and its followers. And they did stifle any changes from the doctrine, by torturing or murdering people who had different opinions. See the original Martin Luther, or Kepler.
The OP had to have been speaking ironically there or else he is dense as neutronium. The whole big argument with Martin Luther and the Church was about giving people access to their faith. When he nailed his Theses to the church door, the Bible was not written in the vulgate. The masses were conducted in Latin and Catholicism remained a giant mystery religion. The reforms he proposed were threatening to the Church because if people did not need priests to intercede for them with God, there would be no need to continue supporting the massive ecclesiarchy.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
by torturing or murdering people who had different opinions. See the original Martin Luther, or Kepler.
Neither Martin Luther nor Johannes Kepler were tortured or murdered by the church. In fact, it was only *after* Martin Luther complained that the Copernican model was incompatible with scripture that the church established a doctrinal position on the structure of the solar system in order to win back protestant converts (as part of the counter-reformation). Before that, they really couldn't care less -- and were quite happy hiring Copernicus as a consultant to fix their church calendar.
You know, I completely agree that the catholic church has done some awful things -- but the relationship between science and religion during that time period is A LOT more complicated than most people think. It's really unfortunate that people cling to these simplistic accounts of "organized religion vs. progress."
The original article is just an oh-so-typical piece of American thinking...
Cory Doctorow is Canadian. Though I guess that doesn't mean he's not capable of typical American thinking. And perhaps you meant American as in 'North American'.
Would mod you insightful if I had points. Instead I provide the link to the article you quote
FTA:
I'm sending [Google Book Search] my fruit-basket today. How about you?
I think you're full of shit.
I don't think Doctorow is famous for anything related to open source. He is famous for writing science fiction novels that have been nominated for both Hugo and Nebula awards (I don't think he's won either, but I'd be surprised if he didn't get at least one in the next few years). He is also well known in open culture circles as one of the few bestselling authors to embrace creative commons licensing (e.g. releasing books that subsequently made the New York Times bestseller list under CC licenses for free download at the same time as releasing the print version). For his recent works (e.g. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, which is delightfully surreal), he is using the CC developing nations license, which even permits commercial redistribution and derived works in developing countries. I can think of no one more qualified to speak on this subject.
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His decision to make them available for free download means that I have been able to read them on my iLiad and not clutter up my house with more printed books (my bookshelves are already overflowing and I've run out of space to put new ones in). I mentioned the license, rather than the quality, of the book in my original post because it's more relevant. Generally, making the New York Times bestseller list and being nominated for Hugo and Nebula awards means that you can assume that the author is competent. The fact that he has embraced Creative Commons and electronic distribution means that he is qualified to talk about distribution methods; he has experience with both (very successful) traditional distribution methods and with attempting to innovate in the way he distributes his material.
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