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Micropayments For News — Holy Grail Or Delusion?
newscloud writes "Harvard's Nieman Journalism Lab sounds off on micropayments for news content, on the side of the argument that says they are a dangerous delusion: 'What does it mean for journalism? It could mean charging for different platforms, for early alerts, for special members-only access to certain premium or value-added content. But I'm pretty sure of one thing: It doesn't mean charging people fractions of a cent to read a news story, no matter how sophisticated the process.' The article provides good context on the debate over micropayments from a 2003 piece by Clay Shirky, to recent analysis and opinion by Masnick, Outing, Graham, and Reifman. Google's micropayment plans were recently discussed here."
If they don't accept anonymous payments I won't pay for the content regardless of how good it is. The technology for anonymous electronic cash has been around for more than a decade. If a vendor wants my money they had better respect my privacy.
The fun thing is that this is mainly a US problem. For example in Russia the most used payment method is WebMoney, where you define exactly what information is public about your account and *by default* everything is private. All the information other party sees is the "purse number" of yours, ie. Z435903486439 or similar.
And you can pay for pretty much every service with it, from buying credit to your mobile phone to doing online purchases. You can also get credit card that is linked to your account. And the system is a lot more secure than PayPal too, with possibility to use keyfiles and sms verification for transactions along others. And theres none of such cases where PayPal just decides to lock out the user account. It is actually your account.
Sometimes its funny how much US is lacking behind on some things.
That's the thing, they think we want content. Well, we do, but we've never paid for content. I can read the local paper at McDonald's or any number of other places for free. I won't buy news, but I'll buy a newspaper once in a while, and it will get passed around the office for everyone else to read for free.
I guess that makes me a pirate in the eyes of "content providers".
That's the thing -- we've NEVER paid for content, we pay for its container, whether it be a book, a newspaper, an album, or a DVD. We were always free to tape friends' LPs and we were always free to record TV shows and movies on VHS (well, since the advent of the VCR anyway). We didn't buy music, we bought records. We didn't buy movies, we bought tapes. We didn't buy news, we bought newspapers.
Now that everything's digital they want us to pay two bucks for a song and you don't even get a 45, they want a buck for a newspaper and we don't even get the paper itself?
Listen up, young people -- don't let the greedy moneygrubbers steal your money buy letting them sell you something that has always been free. Bits are like air; they're free and always have been. If you want to sell air you have to wrap a scuba tank or a balloon around it. If you want to sell bits you likewise have to have a container, like a CD or an LP or a sheaf of paper.
These idiots think I'll buy something that's completely free from a myriad of sources. Must be some good shit they're smoking!
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The general public doesnâ€(TM)t put any value on the source of their 'news'. In other words, a twitter post is just as good as something from the AP. This is partially due, IMO, to shitty poor journalism, so little time and effort is spent investigating and digging for original content nowadays. Rather, today 'journalists' slap together a handful of talking points and use other news organization's reports as sources. Journalism today has by and large become a cycle of shit, thanks in large part to the freak show circus of cable 'news'.
So, I don't see myself paying Google for the same quality of 'news' I can get for free from any random jerk's blog.
FAQs are evil.
As usual, what will end up happening will be something between the two extremes.
Not every news site will be able to, or even want to go with a paid subscription model. Some sites that are charging for content at present, such as the WSJ, will continue to do so. Quite a few more will make the shift to paid access, only some of these will be successful in doing so, some will fold and the rest will go back to the present model of advertising.
What people will see real value in, and will be accepting of paying for is opinion, insight and thought. Current events are raw data - they happen and they're reported as-is. Where the value lies is turning that raw data into information and this is what people will pay for. As an example, anyone can walk into the Australian Bureau of Statistics and get raw import/export data for commodities. There is no value in someone else simply republishing these statistics. What there is value in is looking at the series over time, analysing the data with your knowledge of the industry, saying why things happened in the past and what they're likely to do in the future. People will pay a lot of money for this kind of information.
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Another solution.
Provide an on-line pass with the primary subscription to your local paper. Once you sign on to your local paper's internet site, you receive a cookie that permits you to access any other on-line content of the consortium for the day.
The papers get a win by increasing local readership and circulation. You don't have to worry about micro-payments. If you don't subscribe to the local paper, you're left with micro-payments to access major papers content.
If only the corporate media and big ISPs could find a way to lock down the internet and control access to and dissemination of information and content... Yeah, that's the ticket!
Am I the only one who sees this as yet another argument by corporate media and big ISPs as to why they need to become the gatekeepers of the internet?
I may be wrong, but I see this as just another salvo in the war against net neutrality.
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
That said, I'm really confused about the places you decide to split hairs. For example:
Commercial copyright infringement isn't just illegal, it's wrong.
I have to admit I was surprised by that statement in context of your post. I'm guessing that you want distribution of copyrighted content to be allowed as long as no one is making a profit? What does "commercial" mean here? Anytime that someone accepts any compensation in return for providing a copy of a copyrighted work? Or does it have to be on a large scale? What if someone facilitates commercial infringement by making content available in a form that makes it easier to copy? I'm just trying to understand where you draw the line.
By the way, I'm sympathetic to your view, and I understand that much of the "pirate" market consists of people who wouldn't pay for the content anyway (and, for many, if they find something valuable enough, they will pay).
But I simply can't agree with this:
When I go to a concert I'm not buying anything. I'm paying for a service, just like when my employer pays me for my time or I pay a barber to cut my hair or tip my bartender. When I buy that band's CD I'm buying a CD. When I hear them on the radio, it's free. When I tape it off the radio it's free. The content is free, the CD and service (concert) are not.
I understand the distinction you're trying to draw about a "service," but you choose a very interesting place to draw the line. Are you allowed to make a recording of this "service" and distribute it freely? Are you allowed to sneak some people into the concert to enjoy hearing it as well, as long as they don't disrupt other people? They aren't interfering with the "service" for anyone, and since you aren't buying anything, what does it matter?
I would think that the latter sounds immoral. It does to me. You're paying to hear that performance, whether you want to call it a "service" or whatever, just like part of the profits earned on the CD you buy go to pay the artist for performing in the studio and making the CD. Yeah, if a performance gets played on the radio, you can hear it for free, just as a band can hold a free concert. But it does not follow that the content of a recording has no inherent monetary value. If I go to the grocery store, and they have a "buy one, get one free sale" on cans of peas, it doesn't mean that cans of peas are "free" in any absolute sense. If I show up on the first day they're selling a new computer application, and they give me one for free as a first customer, that doesn't mean it was "free" in an absolute sense, and I should just go home and give the software to everyone. Playing something on a radio or even allowing legal taping of "free" performances on the radio does not make every recording of that performance in every medium "free."
And even if you think it does, it does not follow that the "content" of CD is free. Come on. It's particularly noticeable in classical CDs. I can buy a recording of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" by some crappy orchestra for less than $5. I can buy a CD that looks exactly the same except for some cover art, but it was just recorded by some hip new group in Italy, and I'll pay $18 for it. If the "content" of the CD is free, then what the hell am I paying $13 more for? I'm paying for a better performance (or at least a newer one or one that's more in vogue). Classical labels are small enough that new orchestral recordings simply won't pay unless they sell CDs; how else do you justify getting 50-100 musicians together to provide
Commercial copyright infringement isn't just illegal, it's wrong.
I have to admit I was surprised by that statement in context of your post. I'm guessing that you want distribution of copyrighted content to be allowed as long as no one is making a profit?
It used to be legal to record your friend's LP on cassette. See, publishers don't sell novels, they sell BOOKS. They should continue to sell books. When you buy a novel for your kindle, you should get a nice dead tree book to go along with it; or rather, when you buy your book you should get the electronic version as well. Noncommercial copying does not hurt the artist; it's nothing more than advertising. I'm not likely to buy Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom if I've never heard of him, and even if I have I'm not likely to buy it unless I've read other stuff by him. As it is, I read Little Brother on his web site, liked the story and the way he wrote, and bought DaOitMK.
Forty years ago I bought Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced when a friend gave me a cassette of it. They didn't play Hendrix on the radio, so without that "piracy" that sale would not have been made.
But selling copies of works you aren't authorized to sell DOES deprive the artist and publisher of revinue.
What does "commercial" mean here? Anytime that someone accepts any compensation in return for providing a copy of a copyrighted work?
Yes. A sale is a sale, it shouldn't matter if one illegal copy was sold or a million. There's actually something tangible there.
What if someone facilitates commercial infringement by making content available in a form that makes it easier to copy?
I'm not sure what you mean by this, you mean like inventing a CD burner or ripper? Would you prosecute a gunsmith if one of his hunting rifles was used for murder?
Are you allowed to make a recording of this "service" and distribute it freely?
Why not? A concert is more than music, and agiain, this only helps the artist. The Grateful Dead, who got little airplay, would have never had the popularity they enjoyed had they not encouraged bootlegs of their live performances. I have friends who post lossless copies of their shows on archive.org, as thousands of other artists do.
Are you allowed to sneak some people into the concert to enjoy hearing it as well, as long as they don't disrupt other people?
Thats silly, of course not. OTOH when I was in college in the late '70s at SIU, they had the Mississippi River Festival there. You could (barely) hear the concert from our on-campus apartment; it was an outdoor festival that went on every night all summer long. They didn't allow alcohol past the gates (I think they were OK with drugs though), so there were mountains of beer outside. My then-wife and I would sit outside listening to the concert and drinking beer. Occasionally we'd buy a ticket and go inside where you actually got the full experience. But nobody ever complained about the party outside, nor should they have. In fact, there were acts I'd not heard of that I wound up buying albums from hearing them outside the gates. Like I said, I'm not likely to buy a concert ticket for a band I've never heard of.
I can buy a recording of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" by some crappy orchestra for less than $5. I can buy a CD that looks exactly the same except for some cover art, but it was just recorded by some hip new group in Italy, and I'll pay $18 for it.
You can buy a copy of a Britney Spears CD for $20 or a CD from a local band that actually has some talent for $5. I don't see the point of your argument. The content is the "carrot" that gets you to spend the money on the physical object.
But when you claim that recorded content (or printed or whatever) has no value... well, if that's true, I hope you won't miss that "content" when no one makes any more for you.
It will never hapen. Creative people MUST create; it's in the way they (we) are. A musician can no more refrain from playing music than an alcoholic can refrain from drinking. There will always be art, good and bad, whether or not it's monetized.
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