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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."
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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
But intermediaries are never going to go away. A model where millions of creators market directly to hundreds of millions of customers just isn't going to work; the good stuff will be buried in the dreck (even worse than it is in the current system).
Put your copyright in,
take your copyright out,
put your copyright in,
and you shake it all about
you do the Cory bullshit speak
and you twist some words around,
that's what it's all about.
So artists should spend 60 hours a week pressing disks and mailing boxes to cut out the middleman? So there should be a hundred thousand separate online stores, one per manufacturer? I'm not giving out my credit card number to some rubik's cube manufacturer, but Amazon is trustworthy. And how does it make good sense to design a web site for every manufacturer; just uniting everything in one familiar format is much more efficient. Any possible gains from doing it on your own would be offset by the cost of developing and deploying your own ecommerce platform. I don't think Doctorow realizes how many millions of dollars it costs to run warehouses and hire workers.
I read the article and I still not quite sure what he is talking about. He seems to be complaining about fee structures. Amazon doesn't control compensation structures and offers all sorts of direct sales models and google by and large doesn't sell content at all.
I couldn't follow even the basic cause and effect claim for his issue with the current model.
The irony is that Dr Doctoro is another intermediary too, putting himself between the things he finds interesting and us. what a corporate dog! I free myself of your monopoly!
This is my sig.
These things, Doctrow, says combined has led to a stifled market. I don't know if I agree, since each evolution has been innovative and I hope Doctrow isn't making the claim that Google et al are going to be the last and final stage.
Unfortunately, Doctrow isn't an economist or a social researcher, he is an author and blogger of some repute. That doesn't give him the innate ability to investigate the market and social dynamics taking place.
Essentially, the main complaint he has is that the creative industry is going to be governed by a handful of companies (an oligopoly) or a single company (a monopoly), and that this has great risks for the creative industries because said company/companies will be able to impose their will on the creative artists e.g. what books they'll stock/sell, what price they'll pay for it, and sell it at, etc.
The only way to combat this is to ensure that there are no "gatekeepers", and that there is healthy competition.
However, he's saying that the cost to enter the market for these competitors is becoming too high because of deals involving copyright issues that place Google and Amazon at the forefront since they can afford to pay the high sums being asked for.
So, he's saying that RIAA, the MPAA, the Author's Guild and the like should make it much cheaper and easier for people to get into the market to sell stuff. FTA:
Dunno, it seems to me that he's just describing basic economics, and the dangers of monopolies and oligopolies.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
The Roman Catholic church has stifled diversity and innovation in religion specifically because the Pope and priests pose as intermediaries between between the parishioners and their god. Just ask Martin Luther. He couldn't even get the "Church" to allow him to translate the Bible into his native language so individuals could determine for themselves what it actually said and meant. He had to use innovation and start his own church, thereby increasing diversity in religion.
When organizations become so big that they are a practical monopoly (I don't want to get into a debate about what exactly is a monopoly and who has or doesn't have one. I define "practical monopoly" to mean most people go to them first when looking for a specific type of product or information to a great enough degree that that organization has a large and significant influence on what information people find or products they buy.) then they can stifle innovation simply by not making it easy for the public to find those things.
Lately I have been complaining that Google stifles my ability to find what I need simply by predominantly showing me sites that are selling a thing rather than simply have information about the thing itself. This stifles my access to new and innovative things simply by burying them amongst the marketing sites.
The original article is just an oh-so-typical piece of American thinking, wherein money and market are the ultimate movers of everything.
Of course, if your concept of culture stops at Coke, Pop Music and Hollywood, this may hold true. If it extends to encompass Homer, Beethoven, Boole, Sartre, or Australian aboriginal art, however, you'll have to admit there is no direct correspondence between cultural "value" and market "price". The CULTURAL value of Picasso is NOT the price of his painting as sold at the latest auction.
Culture will go on existing even after all the Googles, Amazons, Wall Streets and Doctorows have perished.
Intellectual Property: an immaterial non-entity, most fiercely contended by those with no proper intellect to speak of.
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.
What's REALLY funny, as another commenter pointed out earlier, is that every company he complains about started as some guy with an idea and a garage about 10-20 years ago! Talk about raising the barrier to entry!
Google did not exist in the early 90's, some guys with a great idea for a search algorithm started a search engine in their garage (or maybe basement, I don't remember). People started saying "Hey, this is kinda cool", and it grew, and as it grew so did it's influence, and eventually the Mega-Corp Google (actually on the small end of mega-corp) was born.
Amazon, same thing, some guy in his garage said "I can't afford to open a book shop, I know, I'll sell books on the internet!". It started small, and grew, and now Amazon sells -everything- and keeps market prices down while doing so because of his business model.
Doctoro seems to be forming his opinion by closing his eyes to the last 15 years of the Internet. Well, 15 years is not a long time, and in that time we've seen entire markets shaken up by the continually lowering barrier to entry - just look at the newspapers going through the same thing now.
Google and Amazon may be gatekeepers, but it's the back gate they are keeping, and they've been propping it open. If they try to close it now, an enterprising individual will simply find a new gate to prop open.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Cory Doctorow seems to me to be a career activist, raised in an environment of "dismantling the system." This is the sort of person who's so blinded by ideology that he'll never choose to grasp anything outside of a contrary perspective to mainstream thinking. It's not that he doesn't--he can't.
This man didn't even complete college. His education consists of attending a "Free" "Alternative Education" High School before failing out of college and working at a series of non-profits. Most of the people posting on this thread are probably more qualified to make statements on this matter in both a theoretical and real world sense. Think about it. Have you taken economics classes? You win.
We're reading the words and ideas of someone who's been raised to just say things that are contrary. When Doctorow makes sweeping statements, it's best to back away and think through them. Sci-fi writers are good at sounding like they have authority. Sometimes, this leads to brilliant and revolutionary visions of the future in a superficial sense, other times you get Scientology.
I know he's got oodles of "internet cred," but I'd just like to state for the record that I don't choose to credit this man as an authority in this field and I think we should take anything he says with a grain of salt.
Funny, back in 2006, Cory Doctorow wrote an article titled: "Why Publishing Should Send Fruit-Baskets to Google", where he says:
Google's new Book Search promises to save writers' and publishers' asses by putting their books into the index of works that are visible to searchers who get all their information from the Internet.
Oh, and congratulations on getting yourself on slashdot, again, "anonymous reader" (aka Cory Doctorow). You are truely a master of self-promotion. Clearly, Doctorow has a talent for creating controversial stories to raise his status and visibility on the internet. It isn't really about the consistency of his views, but rather, saying whatever is going to get himself in the news.
Cory is still mad because he can't release his audio books on Audible(owned by Amazon) because they require DRM on the audio books they sell, even if the author and copyright holder does not want DRM.
Did YouTube take down some BoingBoing video and that has him cheesed at them now?
no
The library (& Google) stifle innovation by unjustly taking the bread money of creative authors. The library contributes no added value.
Crunch the numbers such as a new book. A city metro libraries buy 10 to 50 book copies. In one year, 2 weeks of check out time, divided by 52 weeks a year. A loss of 10 books (actually checked out), 10 times a years(many unchecked), times a 100 metro areas in USA, times 5 years, times $20 a (good quality) book. That's $1 million. Or $50k to $200k per year. Kind of what your boss pays to employ you. All stolen, free profit by libraries. But at an unintended cost. The Constitution never meant for Library greed nor the corporate greed on the other end.
Few books succeed. Nearly all are a loss or only make a few $1000s per year.
Do not write books. They do not pay. Books lose. In fact it is a huge loss to authors. Do not be an author.
Better to write 10 empty books than 1 good one, because quality loses. Same occurs in every country not respecting property. Any type property.
The Law of Unintended Consequences says something must give. There is no free lunch. The consequence is poorer quality writing and fewer authors dumb enough to write. The Library is wasting your time to read poor quality junk. But they get paid, junk or not.
Amazon at least encourages 'some' quality media because anybody can rate and comment upon media. Anyone can sample before paying. Google is just a search engine. Except where they have singly redefined copyright law. Multi national corporation have no allegiance to flag or country. The Constitution does not apply to Google. They are worse than the Library.
The ideal is still the local bookstore where buyer beware. The buyer can preview the entire product before purchase.
Copyright (c) 2009 me :-)
Score & Karma: SASA: Slashdot Approval Seekers Anonymous
I'm selling eBooks through Amazon and Fictionwise, and will move into POD books soon also through Amazon. There is no way to reach that audience other than by playing by their rules since I don't have a big mainstream publisher behind me. If I can sell for money through Google in the future I'll do it there as well. If Amazon and Google are making too much in the way of profits off of my work - compared to zero profits otherwise for me - then I will use what I do get from them to invest in their stock in order to share those profits.
Wake me when a better proven selling model for a small author arrives.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."