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Cable Exec Suggests Changing Consumer Behavior, Not Business Model
Techdirt has pointed out yet another cable exec that just doesn't quite get it. Comcast's COO, Steve Burke, recently urged the TV industry to find ways to "get consumers to change" rather than figure out better methods to cater to demand. "'An entire generation is growing up, if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors, we're going to wake up and see cord cutting.' How many consumers, in any market, are focused on 'respecting' vendors' revenue streams? How, exactly, does he propose to effect this sea change? And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?"
If I was making 2.2 million dollars a year salary I would probably say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear, too.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
"It's better for millions of people to change instead of a couple thousand! I know because I'm COO! Say it twice! COOCOO!"
I think Rupert has finally found his soul mate.
I'm sorry it is your business model that needs to change, not US.
There were many fine works when copyright didn't even exist; hell, if copyright existed, we wouldn't have had Shakespeare's.
Well, if they expect to live off the same franchises over and over in perpetuity, and not really work, I can see where their problem is.
After all, it's all men in suits who would kill themselves just for money.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And make your money on touring.
On one hand, yes, media companies (and indies, etc) should develop things that people are willing to pay for, instead of putting out remakes and rehashes on a regular basis (i.e. Fark's "In yet another sign that Hollywood has truly run out of new ideas...")
On the other hand, there's no real ethical or legal excuse for pirating something, simply because you don't like the price of it. If you don't like the quality of the offering at the price it is offered, then don't buy it. It's quite simple.
I now expect 4 dozen posts, making car analogies, expounding on the "false" argument of lost sales, and pointing out that I'm likely an astroturfing RIAA/MPAA shill.
Have fun!
Ask any IT professional what's the hardest thing to change?
User behavior.
Technology is supposed to make out lives easier, not the other way around.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
"get consumers to change"
Alright then, I'll change. I'll change to a different provider.
Changing customers' behavior is exactly what advertising and marketing are meant to accomplish. It's just usually aimed at getting people to buy your product. Here, instead of "Buy our $FOO now!" the message is "Don't download our $FOO!". I don't see why I should be angrier about this than about advertising in general.
Might I be the first to give a gigantic "Whoosh!" in Comcast's general direction. I cut that cord a few years ago and with the help of MythTV, Boxee, Hauppage, Turtle Beach, Netflix, and Xbox Live have never looked back for a second.
My Babylon
If nothing changes, producers will stop producing when they realize they'll never make back their $250 millon in production costs. The cable companies won't be able to keep subscribers if all they're showing are Gilligan's Island reruns. They'll be poorer and we'll be richer as a result. Is there still a problem?
John
We should all change to meet his business goals. You all need to stop being so self centered.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Luckily I'm pretty sure that the collective drive everyone else has for free entertainment is going to overpower anything they try and do. Its like trying to stop teens from getting porn.
Alright then, I'll change!. I'll change to a different provider.
I'm raising my daughters completely away from the traditional media revenue stream. We don't go to movies, we rent them when they come to DVD. We don't watch broadcast TV at all. They will be the next generation of media consumers, and there is no way that they are going to change in order to provide profits to the media companies. I recall growing up watching a lot of TV. So far my daughters are not being exposed to that lifestyle. Maybe they will be the outliers, but if they are not media companies are in big trouble.
Changing consumer behaviour is harder than changing the market. And it will cost less rights.
By applying Ockhams razor, this idea is to be revoked!
The sense of entitlement is sickening. No business has a right to make profit, and I certainly don't have to "recpect" their revenue stream. This generation grew up wanting certain things, the dinosaurs in the content industries refused to adapt and now people are used to getting music, movies, and games they want for free. There are now millions of people who will go their entire lives without purchasing much content, and they were created by the greed and incompetence of the RIAA/MPAA and friends.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
While I am sure his comments will get the standard Techdirt drubbing, the reality is that he is correct. It doesn't sound nice to say it, but at this point, the consumers are wrong, and here is why:
The main focus of your post Mike is the concept of "changing to match what customers want". The reality is that if consumers did not want the programming, that would be a good answer. But it is clear through the actions of many that the programming is valuable and desirable, and people are willing to go a long way to get it, no matter the legality. So you have pirate downloads, trafficked cable boxes, sat signal piracy, people paying for VPNs to be able to do P2P, etc. All of this for what? To get the product that the cable company is selling.
So "what customers want" is what they are selling. That is established, it's a clear fact.
So, now "changing to match what customers want", I would have to guess that you are suggesting that the cable companies should drop their subscription model. Perhaps they could run on donations, or perhaps upsell people to dinner with a technician, perhaps selling limited edition "I met the cable company president" t-shirts, or perhaps autographed limited edition flat screen TVs that they could sell for double the price of normal.
Seriously, the only "change" they seem to need to make to meet what the customer wants is to give their product away for free, on demand, on any device, at any time, from anywhere, and at no cost. Sounds like a great plan, and as soon as you explain how they are going to pay for it...
When what the consumer wants is "something for nothing", it's pretty much a non-starter discussion.
Why in the hell should anybody respect anyone else's revenue streams? How about Comcast respect MY revenue stream by giving me free cable?
FUCK their revenue stream. Fix copyright and I'll respect that, otherwise they can fuck off. Legalize and regulate marijuana and I'll respect those regulations, otherwise they can fuck off too.
I'm not going to respect the disrespectable or the disrespectful. WTF are these guys smoking, anyway?
Free Martian Whores!
I don't care for commercials and I want to watch my programs at my convenience. That's really all that has changed.
Is it really that huge a leap for Cable Companies to figure out how to supply a video-on-demand only service?
crazy dynamite monkey
Make something the consumers want to pay for !!! THANK YOU...
I bought Oblivion because it was worth it. I purchased HL2 and all its episodes because.. yeah.. it was worth it... Operation Flashpoint, yep.. really good...
Then, there is all this garbage being created.. Music wise.. Beyonce: Put a ring on it.. One of the dumbest songs to ever exist, what was she on when she wrote it? People, and companies are becoming brands.. some people fall for the crap they produce, but the smarter population tries before they buy. If it truly is worth it, they will pay for it.
On the other hand, there's no real ethical or legal excuse for pirating something, simply because you don't like the price of it.
Because...it was there.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Microsoft proves it can be done with every release of Windows.
Watch video here..
http://informationliberation.com/?id=8339
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized." - Edward Bernays
http://tinyurl.com/globalwarmingisascam
I hereby declare that I'm willing to do exactly this for half that price!
Any takers?
Hello?!
In order for me to get everything I want you're going to have to make some changes.
...I'm guessing he is correct. Its the spin being put on what he is saying that is outrageous:
The quotes really are quite stunning. Burke basically seems to be saying the focus needs to be on figuring out ways to get consumers to change, rather than changing to match what customers want. A business model based on going against what consumers want doesn't seem likely to last that long.
What I'm stunned by is the assumption that Comcast's COO should be looking for ways to give people as much content as they want without them paying Comcast a penny to receive it. Because lets be fair - this is exactly what customers want.
To color every contrary desire as stunning or greedy is just ignorant.
It's a bit too late, you missed our generation, and it has already spread to our parents (who are pissed that their TVs now require several boxes and don't just 'work') and our children certainly aren't going to 'rebel' by embracing the corporate message.
The only way to earn respect is by showing respect. And, last I checked, my television/vidcard/cablebox/musicplayer/gameconsole all don't seem to want to trust me or each other. I'll continue to go with the more convenient, fully compatible, more functional, product.
When my iPhone decides it won't try to automatically erase itself after I reinstall my OS,
When my cable box outputs an unencrypted signal... hell, when I don't need to rent cable boxes just to access channels my TV can technically display,
When I can install a new hard disk in my game console without thrashing the firmware...
Start with that, and then I'll listen again. At that point, then we can discuss some of the other built in annoyances you have contrived.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I still don't understand what kind of dreamland these people are living in. Between cable/satellite execs (and their ISP businesses, like Comcast), **AA execs, etc, I would be seriously surprised if they weren't very much like we are when they shop around for a deal and expect to be waited on with proper service. But if they're in charge, they can just demand that customers conform to their ideas and business models? HA! Good luck! They'll be losing customers faster than they could've possibly imagined. WE just need to put our money where our mouth is. (Of course, that's difficult to do sometimes with stupid monopolies on service areas...) Don't buy upgrades. Change service. Find some other means to get what we need. They need us. We don't need them.
I work in a service-driven company. If we treated all of our customers the way cable execs treat theirs, we'd quickly go bankrupt. Customers don't want cookie-cutter programming plans and high prices with no competition and crappy customer service. They want what's a good fit for them. Give customers what they want, and they'll do just fine. Keep fighting the system and it'll just get worse.
Bite my shiny metal ass!
When you go to the supermarket to buy a particular product... Let's say KETCHUP... You'll usually find you have several different brands available to you. The more expensive name brands are usually placed right at eye level, whereas the least expensive store brands are usually on the bottom shelf, where you're only likely to notice them if you're really looking for a deal. This is called SEGMENTED MARKETING. The name brand is targeted to the people who have the high-stress, well-paying jobs and don't have the time or energy to try to find the best deals. But the best deals are still available for those who need them.
I'm yet to see cable companies and "content providers" doing anything equivalent. But they really ought to. The vast majority of people who spend time and energy on piracy are students and low-income people who couldn't buy the content legitimately. People who have active, stressful lives and who make enough money will frequently fork over the money for legitimate copies of the content they're interested in just because it's less of a hassle to do so.
What cable companies and content providers ought to be doing is trying to come up with that deal saving "store brand" version of their content. The content that could still appeal even to the starving college students and minimum wage slaves that they'd consider shelling out a few bucks on it here and there.
Not that I'm in love with Verizon, but since I switched, I stopped taking antacids while waiting on hold to be told I have to wait 24 hrs before I can :
A. Maybe have a restoration of my service, or
B. Not be able to back-charge them for my lost service (which I was paying through the nose for) until that period has expired.
My head may be all wrong, but my stomach is much happier now.
F#@K Comcast. The only good they ever did me was give my City a nice addition to the skyline with all their profits. Which, by the way they don't have to pay any taxes for the next 10yrs for.
I hate to be pedantic, but I am. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/sea.html
"Comcast's COO, Steve Burke, recently urged the TV industry to find ways to "get consumers to change" rather than figure out better methods to cater to demand." This is the mentality of every boss I've ever had.
A long time ago, individuals worked for a company and the norm, not the exception, was that was where you retired. The difference was that this relationship was a two way street, strong pension, etc. Mergers followed by getting shown the door were the exception. The same was true (then) for contractual arrangements. Doubling rates or cutting what was delivered was the exception.
When was the last time you received a letter that you're credit card rate was going up, simply because they could?
Or for the same level of service from your cable/internet/phone provider "Due to Conditions Beyond Our Control" was going up in price.
The point is, that if a business or industry wants the customers to have a vested interest, it needs to be reciprocal.
... I say maybe I'll start to worry about what is fair to you a little bit when you start to worry about the level of service given to ME.
The corporations of the U.S. are not monarchy (yet) so it's not our job to make sure you live high on the hog. Maybe if you treated me like a customer I would feel some loyalty.
Perhaps what Mr. COO Steve Burke and $other_nasty_big-company_bigshots are afraid of is really that an entire generation of Americans is comping up realizing that, as Stallman puts it, "Information wants to be free," and we are now _expecting_ to not be screwed for every bit/byte of information there is.
[insert backgroup music: "do you hear the people sing, singing the songs of angry men; singing the songs of angry people who will not be slaves again ..."]
Listen up Comcast (and others): The world is a-changing, even America; we're moving forward and leaving you dinosaurs and your archaic entrapment of our information behind!
And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?"
Because he feels the same way you do. You don't seem at all eager to adapt your behavior to the terms on which products are being marketed. You instead want to force the providers to change.
So, you don't want to change, you just want to do things your way and force others to change. The provider also doesn't want to change. They want to do things their way and force you to change.
Both parties want to give little and receive much. Consumers want to pay little and get lots of high quality content. Providers want to expend few resources in content provision and receive lots of money.
I'd say the two groups are more alike than different. One just has more members than the other.
Well forgive me if I got this all wrong here, but... does he not simply mean that customers should pay for what they get, instead of just illegally and freely leaching it off the Internet ?
I was all ready to pop out a funny, pithy comment like "Cable Consumer Suggests Changing Cable Exec", but decided to RTFA (yeah, stupid me, here, let me turn in my geek card ...), when I realized that it's just a bunch of manufactured hype. The Techdirt article that the Slashdot article is based on is based on is a piece of crap. Here's a link to the original article rather than the Techdirt regurgitation.
I get the feeling this guy is being quoted somewhat out of context. Techdirt goes on a rant about how the cable companies need to develop new business models, not just beat up consumers. From a quick glance at the www.broadcastingcable.com article, it appears that he's saying that if cable doesn't evolve their business models, they'll bet run over by internet-based content providers. The original article discussed targeted ad content and better-than-Nielsen viewing measurement as future directions cable could move in to improve their business model. So, yeah, the Techdirt guy has his head up his ass.
Now, with that being said, I'm sure that whatever "new" business models the cable companies dream up will largely consist of overcharging consumers, providing crappy service, and extending DRM tentacles into everything they touch, and hence won't really be seen as a win here on Slashdot, and certainly won't be all that different from their current customer abuse.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
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will render you extinct.
by "changing consumer behavior" he must mean overriding essential features of human economic behavior, up-ending everything we've believed for centuries about market theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus#Model
good luck with that.
On the other hand, there's no real ethical or legal excuse for pirating something, simply because you don't like the price of it.
“Information on the Internet is subject to the same rules and regulations as conversation at a bar.” ~ George Lundberg
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Cable TV free and proud, two years running.
Improve your life. Cancel your subscription.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
... if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors ...
"Respecting copyright" is not really the same thing as "respecting subscription revenue". There are a significant number of people that do respect copyright, even if the typical Slashdot discussion doesn't seem to support that statement. But even if every music and movie "pirate" stopped downloading illegal copies as of today, it wouldn't fix the broken revenue model the music and movie industries still want to cling to - the technology available today has irreparably destroyed their old-school business plan.
#DeleteChrome
No respect? How about you show the average consumer some respect and offer a fucking A la carte channel lineup instead of these bullshit package deals chock full of 700 channels we never wanted in the first place yet are forced to pay for to get the 3 channels we really want?
And I'm sorry, I have little respect nor pity talking to an executive who is standing behind a multi-million dollar salary. You wanna talk about respect? "Worthless Greedy Cocksucker" doesn't give your description enough respect.
Keep bitchin'. Go ahead. I'll cut the damn cable off altogether and fix your revenue "problem" and just get all my content via streaming Internet instead, while I sit on a free hotspot enjoying a coffee.
People told stories, wrote books, created music and designed things for thousands of years before copyright's and patents were invented. If you look at the time scale then it is only copyright protection that is new.
I say we go turn the clocks back and remove copyright protection and patents. The lack of copyrights did not stop the creation of Mickey Mouse. Also I would like to be able to sing Happy Birthday in public without having to pay performance fees to someone.
Correction copyright originates from the British Statuate of Ann 1710. So 300 years for copyright, except it was repealed in 1842. So when do we start counting?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
As in, "You customers will buy our products because we say so, and just because. Don't bother asking why; it's too complicated for you to understand."
You do have to admire the simplicity of their business model.
What product would that be? The World of Goo payment experiment effectively demonstrated that when consumers can choose how much they want to pay for a valuable product they, for the most part, to pay far less than it's worth. I don't think piracy comes down to a quality issue with the product.
Don't like copyrights? Fine, write to your government representative. Don't like the product? Don't watch it. Piracy is not a statement; it's transparently self-serving and to claim otherwise is to delude yourself.
Big Content has to change it's business model, not because it's ethically wrong, but because people simply aren't going to stop violating copyrights because they're cheap.
Now I'm not saying that think that copyright is perfect. It isn't and it needs a serious reform but that isn't an excuse to violate it for your own interests.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
They never did figure out that the consumer can find an alternate if they really want. As far as they're concerned, all of those tech types and their followers are a bunch of pirates, if not outright thieves.
The real issue is that they still have a bunch of marketing feebs running a technical organization. While I was there, I got to listen to a weekly "pep talk" from the marketing feeb CEO of Comcast online. How depressing, a room temperature IQ explaining how an ISP is run.
Glad I never was a customer. The HR feeb I exit interviewed with was amazed that someone could live without them. That should explain the mindset around there.
Posting anonymously because I still have friends there.
"'An entire generation of business executives is growing up, if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects taxes and regulations on the part of government, we're going to wake up and see cord cutting.' How many businesses, in any industry, are focused on 'respecting' government revenue streams? How, exactly, does he propose to effect this sea change? And why not just develop policies that businesses will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change business behavior in such a fundamental way?"
Theres only one way theyre gonna pull this off, get Mr. T to rap about copyright.
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With a netflix and cable subscription, you've already paid for nearly everything pirate-able; in most cases twice.
I wish him good luck in trying to convince people with arguable morality to just look away from the cheaper solution.
Now, when he decides to target the rest of the people, it could be more profitable to change the message from:
"It's illegal to make any copy or to broadcast this media on your own."
into
"It's ok to record and repeat it to yourself, family and friends for no profit. If you plan to broadcast it to a larger audience, contact our Customer Service for ideas on how everyone can profit from that. We understand that we can't keep growing our profit by strangling our customers. With a little compromise, everyone will be happy."
My suggestions for the aforementioned ideas:
- If the broadcast will take place on a commerce, we only ask for a feeble 1% from the sales during the broadcast.
- If the broadcast will take place on a public area, tell us where and we'll bring the catering, to which the profit will be entirely to us or shared with the government responsible for the area.
- If you plan to distribute the media online, allow us to insert some ad service.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
To market and change buying preferences than to actually do some work and figure out what is really needed to compete.It is also cheaper and easier to buy congressmen and senators, oops, I meant to say hire lobbyists and make campaign contributions, to pass restrictive legislation than to retool a company.
If he works too much he might not have time for his golf game.
But I think the effort is doomed.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"We need to convince consumers to not want free stuff, but in fact to pay for things that can be perfectly copied for free by anyone"
seems pretty reasonable to me. It's hard for me to think of a single group of people in all of history who actually wanted free stuff.
Ze Atomic Device! It iz Ztolen!
While Steve Burke is trying to figure out how to change consumers' behavior, that other Steve has already showed us that it is possible. I wonder how many users of the original Napster just use iTunes now because it's cheap, easy and safe.
"An entire corporate business model is not evolving, if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects rights and budgets on the part of consumers, we're going to wake up and see cord cutting. Home many corporations, in any market, are focused on 'respecting' consumers?"
There fixed that for him.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
I respect and comply with copyright laws, and I believe that the artist and the industries that distribute their works deserve to receive their wages. That said, the draconian measures that the RIAA camp have resorted to in recent days may well put them out of business. I have begun to feel of late that continuing to purchase ANY media that MIGHT be duplicated or retained too long may expose me to undue risk of litigation, even if I have done no wrong. I do not NEED to be entertained, I simply enjoy it and I can live just fine without their products if that risk becomes too excessive.
Watch TV that is. Exceptions: Jay Leno, and 11:00 news (Sometimes). We are in the 30-35 bracket but have had a fair amount of disposable income, but we dispose of it into savings and our home instead. We still have TV, we even have limited cable, but I can't stand it.
We get all our other video entertainment from Blockbuster, Hulu, or Steam. I just plug my laptop into the TV and away we go!
Otherwise, it's working on the house, doing things fun w/ our time (I fly R/C, she likes to decorate), I play vids, she shops for our next vacation, we both love going places, Sometimes we even like being w/ other (gasp!!!) PEOPLE.
It's exciting because we don't feel "tied" to a show (gotta be home by 8 on Monday to watch Heroes?? Gimme a break, that's pretty damn lame.)
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
It would seem that both respecting copyrights and having products that you want to buy are a good thing. So where is the contention. Are you trying to get them to provide you with content that you want or are you scamming them as much as you think they are scamming you. It has long been known that consumers want the best products for free. The vendor wants to sell you the cheapest thing he can buy for as much as you can pay for it. The business model hasn't changed there, how exactly do you expect them to change the scarcity/profit formula to suit your needs? I'd really like to hear the people screaming about the bad business model to explain exactly how it should be changed, because I don't think they actually know what a business model is.
Why bother
When was the last time you went to McDonalds and got a free hamburger or GM and got a free car? How many of us can expect to work for FREE. That is what is happening here. It is not a matter making things fit some demand model. Demanding that things be free, doesn't make it so.
Take a spoon and eat my ass with it! I am a Pirate! In the past 15 years I have shown as many people as possible how to copy their shit, where to download shit at, etc etc. I was fed up 15 years ago being bullied around by these big companies, they have no respect for us, so why should we respect them? All my family pirates now and so do my friends, hell even my grandpa asks me to burn him cd's and movies. Why? Because they dont understand why when they buy something they cant do whatever they want to it. Like put their DVD's to VHS cause old folks arent too keen on DVD's, or why my siblings cant mod their ps2, they bought it, they can mod and trick out their car but not their video game system? Why is DVR such a problem? If any of you here could wrap your head around the amount of TV my mother watches its sickening but yet they wanna take her DVR from her, I guess she will have to download them from now on. And dont get me started on how shitty the entire entertainment business has been for over 10 years now. The rising costs of movie theaters for what you get is not worth it, hell 99% of the movies that come out that I download arent worth the bandwidth wasted. Look big wig ceo dumb dumbs, we dont want your shit that you try to shovel down our throats, you push us we rebel, so think twice before you do, and even then think two more times! Do they teach history anymore? Does anyone remember why this country was established? People seriously need to suit up and boot up get some heaters and take our country back! For christ sakes we out number them, we couldnt be stopped if we stood up, people grow some balls here!
Visit my Forums?
Dear Steve,
Here's a good idea - follow the model of the MPAA - i'll tell you how that worked on my family,
We -used to- buy kids DVDs - thomas, bob the builder, wiggles etc. Then I realised a few things
1. We sit through 5 minutes of crap that I can't fast forward. The (very young) kids become restless
2. I eventually get an add with loud, aggressive music and flashing scenes that tell us we are thieves and steal cars etc. when we actually purchased the DVDs
3. The kids have now been tipped over the edge by the disturbing music/images in the "you steal cars" video
4. My wife and I are annoyed at being called thieves every time we watch a DVD
5. The DMCA was hammered up my backside so that I can't rip the DVDs legally to strip all of that crap
Now that's what I call a good business model - and that's how to treat a customer.
Good news is that the wife and I agreed to a solution and the kids asked why we don't buy the shiny covers anymore.
By the way, compulsory **** the RIAA/MPAA and any other lunatic organisation with a similar mindset.
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for the most part, to pay far less than it's worth
They paid what they thought it was worth. That is basic econ 101 stuff there.
Now the producer *thought* it was worth more. Hell he probably couldn't cover his costs at what people really thought it was worth.
Say you make something cool. I know it is hard to believe but there are people out there who do not care about it. You have put tons of energy into it why wouldn't they like it? They will not even download it for free.
Me I didn't even download the game. That is what I thought about it... Not even worth my time to mess with. I'm sure it is an awesome game and all. But *my* time is more valuable on other things these days...
Someone else put it best here the other day '1 greedy person can not compete with thousands of greedy people'. It is greed but there is more to it than just that...
The fundamental problem with many "digital things" (like in this case, music and video files) is that there is a huge disconnect between their expected real-world analogs and the actual laws (both physical and legal) governing the digital-world in which they exist.
The fundamental technical know-how to write programs from scratch to make high-quality copies of media files is really pretty rare. Just the same way that say actually painting an excellent replica of a Rembrandt is something that very few people can do. The main difference is that once someone writes a program to copy media files (which may even be a perfectly legal commercial piece of software to begin with) the dissemination of such a program is absolutely trivial. Teaching the population how to paint stunning rip-offs of Rembrandts isn't just not trivial, it's impossible.
Yes, a few people talk of the myths of lost sales and such, but honestly that's all retrospective crap.
The truth is that psychologically, if you can do something with a couple clicks of a button while you sit at home eating potato chips in your living room, it doesn't feel that illegal, regardless of what the law is or isn't.
I'll even make a car analogy. Say that my mother holds the law in very high regard, even when it comes to piracy. If I go and visit her in a stolen car, she will at minimum yell at me quite profusely, and it wouldn't be unforeseeable that she might call the authorities. But if we go for a drive (in my own un-stolen car) and listen to things from my MP3 player, she wouldn't even think to ask if the music was procured legally. If I told her that it was all downloaded illegally, she may tell me that it isn't right, but she's still probably going to be listening to the music, and there's also no way she's reporting the illegal downloads to any authority.
You never own content*, you only can own the media on which it was created. Sometimes even that doesn't apply.
*by content, I mean videos, music, games, books, etc distributed for profit by **AA that is not otherwise exclusively "given" to you (which by % isn't even worth mentioning).
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
The door swings both ways.
Cable companies need to stop ripping off their customers with bloated rates. Entertainment companies need to put out good material.
By the same token, people who steal lots of material need to go to jail; not get fined, go to REAL JAIL!!!
Advertising doesn't work for me. I use a DVR to skip all commercials all the time.
In the early days of television, TV shows had sponsors and had names like Texaco Star Theater
the arrogance of the tech community at slashdot it quite astounding.. what makes you think you can really do whatever he does at half the price... I am not saying that this guy is great shakes but being the COO of a multi-billion dollar company is not an easy job at all and takes very different skills from being a tech whiz. Have you carried any revenue targets ever in your life ? This post has been marked funny but it is time that slashdotters understand that running a business is tough.
As the father of 3 boys and the pet of 1 cat, I realize that any solution to a problem that starts with or includes the words "make them do" or some variant thereof, is inherently flawed. These people have a wrong worldview. Why doesn't this surprise me?
How about, instead, the wording "they have a need/want; how do we meet it and still get what we need/want?" should figure heavily in the solution.
Why not do some A-La-Cart, or bakery style pricing? I don't want to pay $70 a month for 200 channels that I will never watch. I would be willing to maybe pay 10-20 for the few that I would. So if you break that down, you make more per channel with the A-La-Cart style, rather than bundle only. .30cents per channel. But if you pay $20 for say 10 shows, that is a gross profit of 1.95 per channel! Or even better, the more shows, you add, the cheaper each becomes. So you could 5 shows at $10/month, or 10shows at $18/month...etc. Some type of tiered pricing that allows those of us that do not want to pay tons for something they wont ever completely use. it allows penetration into homes that don't have 70/month to spend, but do have 10-20.
If the Cable Company pays each channel 5cents for their distribution right, and they are charging $70 for 200 channels, their gross profit is $60, or
|| An entire generation is growing up, if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue.... ||
Where does "... respects ... subscription revenue..." fall into or even remotely near respect for copyrights?
I don't respect the "subscription revenue" thing at all. I stopped watching T.V. at home 10 years ago, don't miss it at all.
Prior to "killing my T.V.", I had basic cable service, at the time in my area that was 78 channels. I was constantly complaining "there's nothing on". So, when I moved to a new place, had the choice to get a package of cable T.V. plus internet, or just a straight broadband internet line (for cheaper), I nixed the cable.
I rent movies, when I want, but don't really have time for that as often as I might otherwise like.
The only subscription I have now is my monthly internet connection. I can follow sports, get my news, etc. with that one connection, no other subscription needed.
I respect copyrights fully, I do not download any software, music, etc. that I have not purchased and I do not share such downloads with others. I work in the software industry and I know quite a bit about copyright law, fair use, etc., as it is part of what I have to deal with on my job.
The truth of the matter is for cable companies is: you provide a service that people want, for a good price, with excellent customer service, and people will throw money at you. Cable companies, in my experience (10 years ago) didn't have what I wanted, was over priced for what I did get and customer service was worse than crap. Maybe the behavior that needs to be changed is that of the, dare I say, cable companies.
I'll even do it for thrice the price. That way you know you're not getting cheap BS.
I think it's marked funny because many slashdotters thought it was a joke.... Whoosh....
Some of us have done what he does, for 5-10% of his price. Beyond a certain point in the size of a business your actual roll, responsibilities and work load no longer increase, you delegate. Since he doesn't actually assume more responsibility by working at a larger company, then yes, some of us are capable.
It may be different if he was somehow going to be held to a higher standard, but he isn't, its just the opposite actually. If he fails, he will get treated no differently than I would. Actually thats not true, he has a golden parachute and someone else would be more than happy to hire him elsewhere, ignoring his failure, because he 'knows people'.
Being the COO of a multi-billion dollar company is no different than being the COO from a multi-million dollar company, contrary to what you would expect.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
R U srs? "multi-billion dollar company" and Comcast do not go into the same sentence unless you are saying Comcast is not a multi-billion dollar company. The reality is that TV is facing the same problems as music. Online distribution of materials. Here is the catch... a lot of TV based companies have embraced the medium instead of shunning it. Now companies that deliver the medium are suffering. I canceled all but basic cable and internet with my carrier, why? Because I can see what I want online. I dont have to pay for a ton of channels I dont want or watch like Lifetime or Fox News. The reality is that Cable companies should have gone with the ala carte system along with DVR based technology. Instead they try and gouge the consumer with their bundles of crap. I had 100+ channels to chose from when I had a DVR. I HAD to have 100+ channels. You know how many I watched? 5 of them. Yeah, no thanks you short sited 2 million dollar a year dweeb. You can shove your Consumer behavior changing thoughts up your ass. Im the consumer and I dictate what you deliver, not the other way around.
The cable companies are the ones that have to change. They may lose all their media business and be stuck just pumping bits through their Internet tubes. I get my phone from Vonage, and many movies from Roku/Netflix. That is just the start of where things are headed. The concept of broadcasting at a specific time, and having schedules is becoming quite quaint. The cable companies can compete for a piece of mny content dollar just like any company connected to the Internet. They may have attractive bundles that makes it worth while, but their current business model is headed out the door.
"An entire generation is growing up, if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors, we're going to wake up and see cord cutting."
I read that as: "Bitch! They's people walkin' round out there with mah money in they's pocket! Get out there and sell mo' pussy!"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
You want to see a brilliant way to adapt your business model to your consumer? Watch last night's episode of "30 Rock." During the commercial break, I remember some Cisco commercial about a flat screen TV or something, which my brain forgot most of the details because it tuned out the commercial. Then, during the actual show itself, there is a scene virtually co-starring the Cisco product in a not-so-subtle but hilarious way. I now know that it's a teleconferencing product using high definition television and cameras because there's no way I could avoid paying attention to the product while watching the show at the same time.
People can pirate that show all they want and they'll still have to watch what amounts to a Cisco commercial, because taking it out would remove a significant and rather enjoyable portion of the episode. The lack of subtlety worked because it was part of the joke, but I'm sure there are subtle ways to advertise a product within a show itself. I'm not fond of product placement in shows, but I'd be more willing to put up with it if the content was free to watch and distribute.
I don't get it.
He wants to maintain a revenue stream. He wants to cut the cord of "consumers" who actually pay for service. How exactly does that help the bottom line? Does he intend to continue billing after disconnecting those paying customers?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Easier, even. With a multi-million-dollar company, it's small enough that if you screw up, you might bankrupt the company. That means that you have to be at least moderately familiar with what's going on in the company. With a multi-billion-dollar company, you have a dozen divisions that are each multi-million-dollar companies, each run by someone who has to think the same way.
Up a tier, however, the management of each division is left to the VP for the division. Half the time, the CEO doesn't even know what the company makes. It really doesn't matter at that level. They just have to know enough to understand what the VP means when they ask the VP why the division is losing money and when they expect to get back on track, or at least enough to know if they're getting a snow job from their underlings....
Tell you what, put me in charge of such a cable company at 10% of this clown's salary. I'll show you how it's done. The right fix for cable companies is to tear down about ten layers of management between the top brass and the people who know what's going on, spend money on building out data infrastructure further, and finding new services to offer that make your offerings more attractive. I have many ideas for new services that I'd roll out if I were running a cable company, any one of which would make a huge difference in users' lives and would significantly cut down on piracy by doing so. Of course, the notion of piracy when you have a cable signal coming in at a flat rate is absurd anyway, and always has been....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I guess I didn't get his memo, because I just bailed on Charter after what was a 4 year year detente with them. I had been doing the bundled Internet and TV with HD DVR...and would do my annual call saying I wouldn't pay $140 a month for the full service, but would pay something like $110. It took 30 minutes to get through to somebody and I was told I'd have to pay $120 and only get it for 6 months. So, I said the words they haven't figured out yet. "Cancel my TV entirely. I'll just stick with Internet." It was liberating. It felt good. They completely missed the point they were just about to lose out on 60% of their revenue stream with me. Now I'm on high-speed Internet for slightly less than $40 after tax for two years...and won't have to call them on the phone and wait in their stupid queue. That and I'm playing the Hulu, Netflix, and other source for content game from my PC and even streaming it to my living room TV in high quality and not missing the Cable Pig. Haven't yet figured out how to easily get to Discovery Channel, HBO, and Showtime...but working on it. ;)
If a 40-something figures this out.....the cable industry should be seriously worried!
before the internet, you were a necessary evil. someone had to distribute the media, and you needed to be respected in order to provide that service. that portion of copyright law that provided for your protections was valid... then
you have been replace, by the internet
authors, musicians, directors: they distribute their media for free. it serves only as advertising for their real source of revenue: ancillary streams like advertising, promotion, concerts, the cinema house, pulp copies, specialized content, speaking engagements, movie adaptation deals, etc.
you are no longer necessary, and the laws that protect you are defunct. the laws that protect you are not pronouncements from god that say the economic model that allowed for your existence is a permanent state of being
direct artist-consumer links, that is the internet. books, video, music, anything of value that is consumed digitally: its all free. revenue sources are all ancillary streams. ONLY FOR THE ARTIST. NO DISTRIBUTOR NEEDED, SO NO REVENUE FOR YOU
YOU ARE EXTINCT AND YOUR LAWS ARE DEFUNCT. DEAL WITH IT. FUCK OFF AND DIE ALREADY
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Uhm, cable companies have to pay subscription fees too, they don't get channels for free either.
And why not just develop products that consumers will willingly pay for, rather than trying to change consumer behavior in such a fundamental way?
Really? Try working in advertising for a while, it will open your eyes.
The simple answer is this: Good products cost money, both to develop and to produce. Shoddy products with good PR sell just as well and cost less to produce. Advertising and engineering are both tax deductible at the same rate.
Plus you get to spend your meetings with pretty people in shiny clothes who love to say "yes" instead of with grumpy engineers who keep saying "that's not possible." Then there are the side benefits of after-hours with pretty co-workers who like to say "yes."
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
>>If I was making 2.2 million dollars a year salary [forbes.com] I would probably say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear, too.
>I hereby declare that I'm willing to do exactly this for half that price! Any takers?
This is kind of self-defeating idea, right? Believe me, the last thing his boss wants to hear is that he's been paying a fortune to this guy while someone other is fully capable of doing it for half the money.
What people really want it on-demand television. No more channels, just menus of shows to pick from. Haven't DVRs proven that. The only people that seem to get that are the fine folks at Apple, that are working on a subscription service for the TV portion of the iTunes Music Store.
Heck, Hulu was awesome for that. And it took off. Now they want to charge for it. Entertainment execs still don't get it.
As you raise prices and gouge consumers, people starting downloading illegally. When you make things more reasonable, like Amazon and Apple did with music, then people come flocking and making money.
Any belief that people are ignoring copyright now, when they didn't before is folly. If people could have copied LPs back in the 50s, they would have done so. Technology has finally caught up with desire. That's all.
Dear media execs, you most likely have no respect for my revenue stream, why would you. So I do not respect yours either.
You have to _earn_ it.
What's that? You want me to respect copyright? Why? Because it funnels money from my wallet into yours?
This executive has earned himself one unforgettable beating with a 2-by-4, to be held in the back alley as soon as someone gets the balls to actually go and give it to him.
We need to beat some sense into people like this. Literally.
If you feel like you need to change consumer behavior to fit your business model, then you aren't delivering something that consumers actually want (or want to pay for from you), and you deserve to fail as a business. Give 'em what they want, because that's what they will most likely be willing to pay for.
And to solve the piracy problem: Stop releasing stuff in forms that can be easily pirated. Stop releasing DVD box sets, stop releasing individual episodes on iTunes, and stop letting the media slip out of your control. Heck, that way, you save the entire production cost of the DVDs or whatever you need to give Apple to get into the iTunes store. The solution to shark attacks is not to cover up all open wounds and be blood-free and stuff. The solution is to stay out of the water.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
I hereby proclaim that I'll do it for half of the price you are offering.
You're right I am worth $4.4 Mil/year. And I dance better then that other monkey, too!
From the referenced article summary
Over 57,000 people took advantage of the offer, which was enough for 2D Boy to term it "a huge success." Interestingly, they also saw a significant increase in sales through Steam, and a smaller increase through Wiiware. They've decided to extend the experiment until October 25th.
Even though the average payment was $2.00, they still made a ton of money on the issue, even to the point of them calling it a huge success. This says to me that the product was worth $2.00 to people, you can see a similar effect on the iPhone App Store...
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitution for Caffeine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast (yeah, yeah, wiki, but it copy/pastes nicely)
Comcast fiscal data:
Revenue US$ 30.895 Billion (2007)
Operating income US$ 5.578 Billion (2007)
Net income US$ 2.587 Billion (2007)
Total assets US$ 113.417 Billion (2007)
Total equity US$ 41.340 Billion (2007)
I'd say Comcast is a textbook definition of a multi-billion dollar company.
The arrogance of the business community is far worse. How can anyone honestly believe someones skills could be worth 2.2 million per year? Are his skills really that rare? Or maybe it's because big business leadership is an exclusive club where friends reward friends with huge sums of money?
That might be true if everyone could get DSL, but most people can't. My sister lives close enough to the switch to get DSL but the cables to her home are bad. Nobody on her street can get DSL because of this. Now how many don't live close enough to get DSL? Cable reaches more people. And with DOCSIS 3.0 cable can get speeds of 343.04 (304) Mbit/s downstream and 122.88 (108) Mbit/s upstream. Of course fiber sets the speed record but even fewer people can get it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
YEAAAA, RIGHT. Any newly minted MBA could do these things, and probably better at a fraction of the price.
See, that is the kind of stupidity that is not tolerated at that level. Obviously your advice is worth much less than his, so why would you get the job?
...but it is time that slashdotters understand that running a business into the ground by failing to adapt is tough.
FTFY
Your cable company will sell you a DVR, but it doesn't want you to have a copy of anything?
An entire generation of CEOs has grown up believing utter nonsense about the relative values of money and freedom.
Apparently, several trillion dollars in collapsed economy hasn't improved their common sense.
Copyright mostly exists merely because of government corruption (Mickey Mouse protection act, etc). The public domain was stolen from the public. That's why I see no reason to obey it. Breaking the law isn't and cannot be morally wrong.
I already cut the cord. And no downloading (legal or otherwise) was responsible. Why? I realized that every show I watched was on the broadcast channels. So why pay $50/month (up to $60 now) for the broadcast channels (available over the air), plus a load of cable channels with nothing I watched on them. There's some good shows on the premium channels, but those few I can get later on a (rented) DVD, at far lower cost.
In this day and age, I would not do ONE thing that costs another man or woman their job! It's that simple.
If you think it sucks- fine! Don't buy it! If you don't have the scheckles to buy it, don't buy it!
Again, I wouldn't do ONE THING that constitutes theft, potentially endangering someone else's job in today's economy!
It's modded funny because there is no "Blindly Ignorant" option.
Cable companies are getting $150/month and have no costs but the pipes to our houses? Oh noes!
Cable companies don't get given the content for free. Their revenues are from subscribers and advertisers. Their costs are, yes, the pipes they shove the content across. But they also have to pay ESPN for the right to shove that sports content to your TV. And to Disney so your kid can watch Zach and Cody call room service. CNN, MSNBC, FOX-News... None of those are free.
So, sure... They charge a lot, but it's not all about pipes and profit. They do have their expenditures too. The system is NOT as simple as "Cable companies are evil!"
That said... like others I've cut cable/satellite out of my life. Netflix gives me enough content to keep me happy.
The consumer will start caring about the corporation when the corporation starts respecting the consumer. Right now the corporation will screw the consumer over to get every last dollar out of them and the consumer will try to get everything possible for free. There will never be respect unless the war is ended.
Well for this "change" i am assuming he is talking purely about the Internet service they provide. What they provide is shit and at high prices. Recently in my area Qwest has placed their new "fiber optic" Internet. Basically they have fiber to the CO and then copper(twisted pair) running to your house. I get 20 down/5 Up($55mo). I can go for a 40/5 but it's like $130 last i checked. With DSL(VDSL to be exact) i don't have to worry so much about neighborhood usage effecting my speeds, but with comcrap i do. I, probably like many others, switched because all i care about is a good Internet connection that offers good speeds bothways. I don't watch much TV anyways, and haven't had cable for quite some time now. The OTA channels are legal to record and so long as you aren't selling that recording you made, there is nothing wrong with redistributing that especially since it's Public Domain(or at least how i've come to understand it).
I've heard comcast is going to come out with some higher internet speeds, but the most they're ever going to get out of it is T3/D3 speeds and they can't offer that in whole to each customer in coax. Their price needs to drop and every ISP needs to start buying more equipment to effectively be more than sufficient to handle a full load of all their users plus 1/3 extra(IE: more failovers and balancing). Stop trying to limit peer to peer. As i read in a prior post "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers". I'm not saying you should allow theft, but like spam, someone will always find away around it.
If customers feel they are being taken advantage of and that you the company are stealing from them, they will steal from you.
Sometimes, the answer is to just destroy it all.
they beam their content FOR FREE onto the airwaves
they make money off of advertising
likewise, in the future, artists will connect to consumers directly, by giving away their media FOR FREE. then they get their income in ancillary streams: concerts, the cinema house, pulp copies, advertising, promotion, specialized content, speakign engagements, toy product line tie ins, movie adapation deals, etc
NO. DISTRIBUTOR. NEEDED
and it is a COMPLETE fallacy that you need cash up front to make art. plenty toil in povery, plenty always will. they do it OUT OF LOVE FOR THE ART. and we the consumer will continue to pick a few out of obscurity and reward them with fame and riches. NO. DISTRIBUTOR. NEEDED
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If a viewer drops the TV subscription & keeps the internet, that's a small loss.
I'm contemplating that now. Currently I have both cable access and TV, but while my access fees have gone down my TV subscription has gone up. From the prices I've seen I can get satellite TV cheaper. I'll check into the details but if satellite is cheaper and the conditions aren't too much of a hassle I'll switch. I can also check into getting DSL as well, I'm one of the lucky few who live in an area with both cable and DSL access.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It's not just Comcast. Time-Warner and Charter are getting in their hits against their subscribing citizens as well.
Time-Warner's idea of great telephone service is responding within 1 business day to a customer reporting phone outage.
I recall AT&T being out in 2 to 4 hours, rain or shine, weekends included.
Time-Warner is also clearing out the unwanted waste from their bandwith, of stuff like like PBS, BBC news, and Dr. Who.
This makes room for HNN, more on-demand channels, more FOX channels, and of course HD home shopping channels
and, wait for it, more reality shows, from in multiple languages. Because that's what the public is supposedly demanding.
Which must be why they already offer so many consumer-beloved 'paid-time' info-mercials and endless reruns.
Cable TV is become '1000' channels of mostly Hi-Def garbage. I'm pricing antenna systems, etc.
Charter's latest assault 'committed' upon our fellow citizens is to require zipcodes appended to email IDs!
This change starts in 5 days, so get all your email lists, PayPal, banking, shopping and other web IDs updated!
No clue as to whether it's a 5 digit or 9 digit zip code number. Or how linked to IP address, etc.
No attempt at an explanation of how this will stop spambots and other email delivered worms and virii.
No mention of how this will staunch the gloomy and fearsome spread of terrorism. It's just declared good for us.
(Don't try invoicing Charter for the time and inconvenience this causes you, loss of companionship due to friends,
business associates and relatives reacting too slow to your change notice, and then suing in Small Claims court
for their non-payment. That sort of thing is just another senseless attack on shareholder profits and CEO bonuses.)
Below is a snippet from their e-announcement to their precious, vulnerable user consumers:
v~v~v~v~v snip start v~v~v~v~v
Dear Charter High-Speed(R) Internet Customer,
Your privacy and security when checking email through Charter.net is being
enhanced. Starting on November 11, your email login will include the zip code
from your service address, in addition to your email address and password.
Charter is committed to maintaining your privacy, and this additional login
credential through Charter.net is just one more way to ensure its protection.
^~^~^~^~^ snip end ^~^~^~^~^
This has to be some lazy, pointy-haired managers idea to make tracking customers, advertising, and
marketing easier for them. I'm not an expert, only 30 years in IT, but I see no security advantage in this.
I can see where eager shareholders might understand zip-codes but not Open ID or improving user options.
It's not enough these cable operators have combined forces to wage War on Net Neutrality, using carpet-bombing
of contributions to Congress, as well as seeking legislation enabling greater, longer, more invasive IP 'protection',
presuming their customers are all merciless IP thieves. Yes, we're utterly lacking in basic business appreciation,
devoid of any understanding and compassion for the real customers--the beleagured and oppressed classes of
dividend-deprived shareholders and bonus-starved CEOs. Expect to be educated or be punished, with tasers and
the hammer of the law, if we dare stymie their business plans to profit mightily and righteously, as God (and Congress)
has entitled them. I'm not sure Calvin or Luther or St. Thomas Aquinas would agree, but perhaps they are heeding
Saint Mammon.
We must cast off our blinders and see the light. The real 'customers' driving our 'free market' are not consumers.
That's so 1990s. The primary customer is now the shareholder and CEO classes. Pleasing them is now Job #1.
And all of us misguided citizen/consumers will have to get on board, to appreciate this essential business 'fact' of life,
or millions more jobs will have to die. If they are the deliver service, then they feel they own our art and that we
must buy it from them, or else...or else...well, they're looking for the biggest stick they can find. And, well,
I can't imagine anything more foolish than Congress trying to enforce an IP Prohibition.
Yes, a few people talk of the myths of lost sales and such, but honestly that's all retrospective crap.
I politely disagree. Ripping and downloading music illegally and freely nearly killed the industry with lost sales of CD's *long before* the industry figured out how to make money on music downloads. Most dedicated music outlets went out of business well before legitimate, online music retail really took off. While I don't agree with the way the MPAA and RIAA go after the little people, I can certainly understand why the entertainment industry got nervous.
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
-- Bertolt Brecht
Artists, authors, musicians, developers, etc. are absolutely free to publish works in the public domain. They do so frequently and it's a wonderful thing. The public domain was not stolen from the public, it's alive and well and is an option for everyone wanting to share ideas with the public.
I have no love of Big Content; they're a scourge. I also think that producers of intellectual content have the right to choose to not release works in the public domain and I think that should be respected.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
at least most slashdottirs have a sense of humor
^
intentional misspelling - why? - idk
I am sure that the horse buggy whip manufacturers, ice block distribution kings, and whale oil lamp cartel had similar plans to change consumer behavior as well. Problem is that the copyright cartel has done little or nothing to change with the times. They have brought this on themselves. It is humorous (annoying?) to see them operate as if they should be allowed to not change simply because they don't want to. Why do they think they are different than every other corporation on the planet? Times change. Technology changes. Adapt or die. It is a fundamental pillar of capitalism (and biology as well, but that is different slashdot thread). You have love their arrogance though.
How about I try it out for a year? If it doesn't work out, I'll take my $10 million golden parachute and jump out. Sounds fair to me.
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
Right, just ask George W Bush. I'd think it was hard too if I was an incompetent moron who never had to actually work for a fucking thing in his entire spoon-fed existence. Fuck you and fuck this corporate douche.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
"We must make the web subscription-based. No sites should be allowed to host content unless we can profit from it again and again!"
The World of Goo payment experiment did not demonstrate that customers in general will pay far less than a product is worth. It just showed that customers will pay the value of a particular product to them. The World of Goo had been on sale for a long time prior to this experiment. Many people purchased the game previously at other set prices--those people that saw that product to them as being more valuable. I'm sure there were also a fair number of others who played the demo and decided the full version wasn't worth it (maybe when it cost $15.00 or so).
I will occasionally download pirated software. This is generally software or music that I really don't value or only need to use once, and really doesn't hold enough value to me to justify paying the full price. These are foundational principles of economics.
I am also the type of person who will decide I need a particular product, pick a few models and wait until I find one in my price range, or wait for prices to drop if I don't value it at it's current price (I'm still waiting on a logitech z 5500 to go down in price).
I could be wrong, but I think these are reasonable practices.
Ok. Now that we've established that I'm not buying it, there is the ethical excuse for pirating it: it's victimless.
Unlike the music industry which sells un-DRMed CDs, the movie guys refuse to accept my money in exchange for an mplayer-compatible (i.e. un-DRMed) file, so I didn't pay them anything, and I obtained the playable file from pirates. No loss to the seller, since they weren't selling. If the stockholders feel there's a loss, then they need to ask the management why they aren't selling playable files.
If you're going to start making statements about "There's no ethical excuse for.." then the first person who has some explaining to do, are the people who are in charge of making profits on behalf of the owners, failing to run a content-sales business. There's no ethical excuse for telling customers "fuck you, we don't want your money" and then failing to resign the next time the owners write you a paycheck.
WTF is the point of copyright, if the holder won't distribute the content? The point of the monopoly is for them to sell it. If they don't sell it, then the reason copyright law exists, has been subverted. When that happens, there's no ethical prohibition against piracy.
I agree with your sentiments. I will not pay the excessive rates for cable television, then be forced to sit/skip through commercials.
I will: sit through commercials on streaming sites like Hulu or the various network sites to see their shows for free online
or
Pay for a subscription on-demand online service to watch the (arguably) very little content I do consume
or
Not watch a damn thing.
"Techdirt has pointed out yet another cable exec that just doesn't quite get it. Comcast's COO, Steve Burke, recently urged the TV industry to find ways to "get consumers to change" rather than figure out better methods to cater to demand."
They "Get It" - that despite the deceitful, fraudulent lies by the dishonest Slashdot crowd, it's clear that what customers really want is content that is totally free (as in beer) and accessible at all times everywhere. If the demand is that those who own the content should "cater to the customer" and provide this, and any other sentiment means "not Getting It", I'd say the proponent is staggeringly and disgustingly deceitful.
Furthermore, there's plenty of areas where "Customers Are Forced To Adapt" and groups that work to "Make Customers Change Rather Than Change Themselves". There's groups that aren't happy about popular sentiment being against gay marriage, doesn't accept that, and work to change it. There's groups that aren't happy about people wanting to buy guns, and wants to change that. In fact, the existence of laws in itself could be seen as "Not Getting It", because if law X that prevents behaviour Y is needed it means that people would undertake action Y, and hence by forcing customers to act differently, they "Aren't Getting It". The proponents of a Dutch weed policy could use exactly the same arguments for legalization of weed as Slashdot Editors use for legalization of downloading, claiming that the illegalizers "Just Don't Get It". A meaningless and ignorant phrase.
Hence, fuck you for being deceitful, manipulative and hypocritical assholes.
I'm going to assume that you're trying to play the clown in the dunk tank.
Suits are all Dog Pack mentality. Whether they come up the ranks as salesmen on a commission or as the boss's son or as a ringer, golf partner, they typically are glorified accountants who maintain the status quo. The average slashdotter probably isn't too good at risk assessment but with the current state of the economy, I'm willing to give them a crack at it and sack the entire lot of ex-jock good-ol-boys.
You don't need to get breast implants -- just retrain your customers to prefer smaller breasts!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I also think that producers of intellectual content have the right to choose to not release works in the public domain and I think that should be respected.
You've got it all backwards, which explains your misunderstanding.
Speaking from the US standpoint, that's not at all what the constitution says. After a limited time their works are supposed to be free to the world, regardless of the author's wishes. Copyright is only a temporary incentive granted by the public to the author in order to encourage more works to be made. It's not to give authors some kind of moral right over their work. That concept doesn't exist in US copyright.
The public domain has been stolen, because most of the works under copyright today belong in it. If we had reasonable copyright laws the public domain would be orders of magnitude larger than it is now. That's theft of public domain.
If the public is no longer receiving more benefit from copyright than its cost of civil liberties, as is the case with current copyright, then it is no longer aligned with its intention as laid out by the constitution. It's plain wrong. So for now many of us will ignore it.
I want uncensored, ad-free, on-demand content. When Cuntcast is willing and able to provide that, we can talk price. Until, then, Cuntcast and the rest of the entertainment industry can fuck off and die.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I was completely and utterly shocked to see the disk go straight to the movie when popped-in.
...because nobody would pay to have their product associated with that film...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The first job of any executive is to protect the existing revenue stream. The problem with telling an existing multi-billion dollar company to come up with a new business model is like trying to take a 90 degree turn in a 747. The aircraft will not survive the maneuver.
Everyone knows the content and distribution businesses have to change. Nobody has any idea how or what the result looks like. Its not like culture will come to an end, there was culture before TV and record companies. But empires have been built and the people they employ are going to do their best to save them. That's not a conspiracy, its the nature of institutions.
wait for prices to drop if I don't value it at it's current price
That's exactly how it should work, that's the foundational principle of economics.
I will occasionally download pirated software. This is generally software or music that I really don't value or only need to use once, and really doesn't hold enough value to me to justify paying the full price.
If it's not worth the sale price to you, don't buy it. It doesn't give you the moral right to pirate it.
I pirate stuff all the time out of pure, immoral self-interest; I don't justify it or sugar coat it. I often even feel bad about it.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
What I don't understand is why they don't realize they've created their own monsters. We've been conditioned to (over) consume. Is it any surprise that when we have the opportunity to get what we want (TV, music, moves) for nothing we take it? Thats what consumers do, take what they want in the least "painful" way possible. Sorry movie, television, and music, this is your mess. We know you're not going to take your ball and go home, time to start looking ahead rather than whining about the past.
your lack of sense of humor is even more astounding.
Whenever my two year old watches a show to end he has only one thing to say:
'One more time'
It's pretty obvious that any customer that has grown up can only demand on demand
You are (kind of) correct. The BS you have to take on that level is amazing, from vendors, manufacturers and even from your peers. Unfortunately, today, most give up. Thinking only the next quarter, next bonus, whatever - not what is good for the company / corporate. It's just human behavior.
Now, yes, I agree with people who say you could do that half (or whatever) of that price, done that, done it for Cxxs and VPs and whoever! But doing it right is more work than most in IT are ready to work for. Once you work 18-20 hours a day over a year, it starts wearing you out. Trust me (or don't), it's not technology, knowing technology, etc is easy - it's working with people, business, all the levels, entertaining people, making policies / strategies, lucky if you have a good secretary who takes half the load, and so on.
But, the problem today, it's gone to blame game, finger pointing, certification / training (for dogs?), etc, once you are on that level you can't do anything wrong and the less you do, the less it can go wrong. I have had CEOs who looked the "root cause" and amazingly (or not) most of time the management, even Cxx level got fired much more often than the people working for them. Today - change the "slaves" seems to be the answer.
So, yes, it can be done in half the price (which is not much looking the whole company/corporate budget and returns) but that's the way today, has been before, will be in future, just sometimes we have "sane" periods - they come and go.
Look, I'm not saying that what this guy does is worth 2.2 million dollars per year.
But this is EXACTLY what the GGP meant when he spoke of incredible arrogance:
Tell you what, put me in charge of such a cable company at 10% of this clown's salary. I'll show you how it's done. The right fix for cable companies is to tear down about ten layers of management between the top brass and the people who know what's going on, spend money on building out data infrastructure further, and finding new services to offer that make your offerings more attractive. I have many ideas for new services that I'd roll out if I were running a cable company, any one of which would make a huge difference in users' lives and would significantly cut down on piracy by doing so. Of course, the notion of piracy when you have a cable signal coming in at a flat rate is absurd anyway, and always has been....
Yeah, maybe. I kind of wonder if there even ARE ten layers of management between "people who know what's going on" (I'm assuming you mean engineers and techs and not finance people) and COO. Also, "spend money on building out data infrastructure" is ludicrously general. It's like a politician's promise to "cut the pork" from government spending. How much would you spend and over what time period? Do you accept that there is such a thing as "too much" to spend, even if spending that doesn't get you the service you were hoping to offer customers?
And the "I have many ideas for new services"...yeah. Contrary to popular myth, ideas are cheap and plentiful. Maybe not absolutely brilliant ideas, but certainly great ideas. But I like how you just predicted that every one of your ideas is a goldmine.
The 10% of that salary for COO sounds about right though :).
Probably should have lined up my pronouns better -- I was trying to say that regardless of the legitimacy of claims that "downloads don't lead to lost sales", people are going to download things illegally simply because it doesn't feel that illegal.
I cut the cord and I don't miss it. The funny thing is the cable company keeps calling me up and offering me free cable. I tried it over summer and my wife and I made a concerted effort to watch cable. The thing is though, and I expect you're not going to believe me when I tell you this, they expect you to organise your life around their schedule if you want to watch a specific show. I know! Also, the amount of adverts just made it completely unwatchable. So I took the box back. Since then the cable company still calls me up offering free cable and I tell them we're not interested. They said if I ever change my mind I can have another two months of free cable and again with no obligation. I'm thinking maybe I'll let it in the house for the NHL playoffs.Then again....
The world has changed. Cable companies haven't and wont. They will go the way of the newspaper and the dial-up internet ISP.
Yup. Exactly.
And the same can be said of BHO as well.
Actually come to think of it, I think GWB actually ran things before he became president, Texans Baseball Team, State of Texas, and at least one other corporation.
What has BHO done, besides "community organizer" and live in an ivory tower? He was spoon fed the Presidency. I mean jeez, anyone could have beet McCain.
The funniest thing about stupid Liberal Democrats, is they insult themselves all the time with their own hypocrisy. And Stupid Republicans are just plain stupid.
Oh, and in my opinion, GWB is looking like a freakin genius next to BHO. AND that my friends is something to marvel at.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
OKay, I don't own a television, and I have no intention of getting one. If I need media-based entertainment I go to one of three sources;
1. iTunes
2. "Other" Downloads.
3. Rent a DVD from a Brick-and-Mortar place.
4. Go to the theater.
Now, that's in priority. The only way Big Media is going to get my hard earned cash is if they cut a deal with iTunes, get it on the racks at BlockBuster, or make it damn-good enough in the first place for me to go straight to the theater. And that last one is a joke. For some reason, the local theaters in my area have actually refused to carry the types of movies that appeal to my demographic (the last "Punisher" flick was no where to be found). However, every one of the theaters have been crawling with chick flicks for the past six months. The horror.
I have one requirement for chick flicks; if you want my $8 per ticket there had better be either;
A) Non-male Nudity. This is a Cash-for-Boobies opportunity. Not complicated.
B) Exit Wounds. Someone buys the farm, and I *don't* mean in a Leonardo-DiCaprio-Titanic way.
Now here's the real kicker. Those two chick flick requirements are not going to change. You want me to take a few of my female friends to the movies to see Penelope Cruz' latest attempt at acting? Then make it *worth* my time.
Hell, you want to guarantee a ticket? Put the nudity/death in the freaking previews!
Now I realize that I might sound a bit immature here, but lets face facts. When I walk into a theater, I can't ask them for plot, character development, or reflections of world issues any more. But what I can ask for is special effects, nudity and violence.
Case in point; someone get Michael Bay to crank out a "Decepticons vs The PlayBoy Mansion" (rated R, at least), and just watch the cash flow.
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
This just in... we're no longer allowed to joke about doing something for an exorbitant amount of money unless we know exactly what his role entails and could actually perform it in the real world.
Seriously, who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?
Let's change consumers and execs so they are less stupid.
I assure you I could run a multi-billion dollar company at least as well as some CEOs have in the past few years (I could manage to put it into a steep decline, not a precipitous one), and I'd charge less.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I've noticed that the moderator doesn't like seeing bashing of MBA's. Too bad because it isn't going to change, just like the current economy isn't going to change.
Even slashdotters don't get that it's NOT about the technology or the DRM or the quality of the products. People are losing their entire livelihoods. The majority of the country is not going to be able to afford entertainment if things don't turn around soon.
Invest in copyright police to fix everyone's attitude? Ha! Go for it!
Chief Orgy Officer comes to mine.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Shakani,
In china, there are 1,200 equally qualified people to the executive in question. With such a gross oversupply of talent, the only reason we are paying these bozo's extra is that the current shareholder laws have removed all shareholder power to do anything about it.
Likewise, with regard to the article, there is an *ENORMOUS* amount of entertainment. This presents two problems for the potential consumer.
a) Most of us are able to spend, maybe, $200 to $400 a month on entertainment. Filling an Ipod would take $10,000. Do the math. Consumers are not going to cripple their life to fill an ipod. They will find a way around that price point. Once they *lose* the songs on the ipod and are asked to lay down ANOTHER $10,000 for the same songs- they get really pissy. yet this is the primary goal of the entertainment industry- rental payments anytime you use any entertainment until "forever-- less one day".
b) On the flip side, the sheer amount of entertainment is exploding. I spent 3 hours the other night just watching homemade stuff for free on Youtube. And there were a couple hours spent watching Star Wreck. There are cable stations with real programs, there are multiple real programs, which I'll never see. I ruthlessly trade down to less expensive entertainment and, in many cases, simply wait 6 to 8 months and get the same entertainment for pennies legally. The price of entertainment is not supportable-- too many people want our entertainment dollar.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
That's why you go to Harvard or Princeton or Yale. It's not for the education. It's for the contacts.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I'm fairly sure that I could run a successful business into the ground by refusing to accept economic realities, and I'd charge less than $2m/year to do it...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Executive
Despite having vast riches and grown children, chooses to come to work because it's fun. Says things like: 'We need more market penetration in Ulan Bator,' and over the next few months, it happens. If it doesn't, the executive must do even more work by saying: 'Why don't we have more market penetration in Ulan Bator?' Magically, it happens and the executive is called a visionary. Life is great.
Stolen from Loncraine Broxton's "30 signs for the workplace jungle"
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Dude, I agreed with you. Except you're the idiot, because you never mentioned it was his failure as a business man, and not political, that you were referencing.
Next time, you might want to be a tad more clear rather than leave it up to the reader to figure out the context.
I only made the reference to BHO because my assumption (considering the typical hate GWB slant of /.) that you indeed meant it as political.
Now, the question I have for you, is this the same stupid GWB that was so smart that he was part of so many conspiracies.
Because half the time, people who think GWB was stupid, also attribute great genius to him and his evil plans to enslave everyone (e.g. Jeannine Garafalo and the 911ers).
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
doesn't excuse execs liek him railing against 'net neutrality' when it doesn't suit them, but then demanding government regulation of consumer behavior when it would benefit. People like this comcast guy are fake capitalists.
You're not just funny, you're hilarious. Fat corporate pigs doing a JOB??? Ha! And you dare call TECHIES arrogant?
Consumers state that they would pick another cable company rather than demands, if there were another cable company.
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.
You're totally right. I used to occasionally torrent an episode of House if I missed it, since I don't have a DVR. But now that Fox broadcasts the show on their web site, I have completely stopped.
Funny how it works. Bend a little toward the consumer, offer them a better alternative, and profit!
The reason it doesn't feel illegal is not that it's easy to do. It's easy to shoot someone while you sit at home eating potato chips, just point a gun at one of your family members and pull the trigger, but that DOES feel wrong, doesn't it ? Killing someone is illegal because we evolved to strongly dislike killing our own kind (not getting killed = more members of species). Same goes for stealing (not letting others steal your food = better chance of survival).
Similarly, the effects of supply and demand are quite 'instinctive'. If something is in limited supply and there is a strong demand, a higher price feels natural. For example: the most attractive girl in school will get the most attention and boys will go through quite a lot of trouble to get a date with her, would they spend the same amount of time and effort on a slutty girl who sleeps with everyone ? Simple survival instinct, if something is desirable for whatever reason (attractive => better offspring, tasty => better quality food) and there is a limited supply, our instinct tells us it's worth it to invest more to obtain it and get that advantage. If supply is limitless, then there is no need to spend resources on obtaining it.
We don't have a built-in dislike for taking something of which there is a limitless supply (copies) because there is no need for such a thing. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The story in the bible about Jesus sharing 5 loafs of bread with 5000 people is not there to warn you of the dangers of copyright violation, the guy turning 5 loafs into enough for 5000 was not the bad guy in that story. Sharing is good for the species, especially if it doesn't cost you a thing.
I would like to argue that the problem with copyright in the 'digital age' is not that copying doesn't feel wrong, it's that charging for something that can be copied with little to no cost does.
But isn't knowing people the skill that he employs to get his job done? I doubt that anyone in a low level tech job has the type of "sway" with potential revenue streams for his company have. The reason why the CEO etc. get the money they do, well sometimes at least, is because business is all about getting someone else to pay for your product in some form. Whether those people are within a corporation or not doesn't matter, as long as the money is there. Business deals are made by connections, not by who offers the best product for the best price.
I'll do it for half of his offer. I have noticed that the taste of crap upon the tongue is often lessened by large sums of cash.
FUCK THEM
Eh, 220k a year is pretty small. A lot of what these guys are paid so much for is "who they know". They host dinner parties and snob in order to strike deals. That would be tough to do on 220k a year. Though I'm sure 2.2M probably is more than necessary.
Lol... I can make arrogant statements that suggest my company should be able to engineer it's customer's behavior too.
As a matter of fact, I could do it all day long if you paid me $2.2 million. Furthermore, since the profit stream originates from a company granted monopoly status by municipalities throughout the U.S. in order to build out it's infrastructure, which subsequently allowed it to compete in voice and data services, I could hire 2 or 3 clones at reduced price, call them PR flacks, send them to Washington D.C. and have them repeat this idiocy, ad infinitum. Yeah, I could do that.
And as for revenue projections, I'd love to see the dog wag the tail for a change, at least as it relates to cable programming. Ala carte pricing is the only mechanism that would ever have allowed consumers to express their preference and effect programming. Instead the customer is the advertising buyer, and the viewers are the product. People have no say in what comes into their homes over cable television and the dreck that is produced by the hundreds of channels, most of which are pay-per-view, has so little quality, that the term, "vast wasteland," is a compliment.
Oh, and perhaps there would be money left over, after paying me, my cronies and the lobbyists, to buy a failing broadcast network from mutli-national conglomerate and turn it into yet another dreck production chain... any bets on what kind of Reality shows we're in for next, or whether Comcast will improve the level of investigative journalism that might inform the electorate? Let's find more creative uses for special effects that will glorify violence, elevate avarice and sell cheap plastic schlock produced in globalized 3rd world companies... err, countries. Then we can all cash in our stock options and party it up on the Riviera.
Success means never having to say you are wrong, let alone sorry...
Alright, you're right, I assumed too much. I should have explicitly mentioned the oil company he drove into the ground and the baseball team that was almost disbanded. To answer your question, I thought the people who thought he was some evil genius were completely insane. He'd have to be diabolical on the level of Dr. Doom to pull that off, he's not even as diabolical as Dr. Demento.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
let me ask you something: why do consumers need to adapt? why aren't creators and distributors adapting to consumers?
you go ahead and try to herd those cats. but my advice to you is that the new model is that consumers get digital content for free, and all moneys to be made off that content is via ancillary streams
don't like that new model? fine. go ahead and fight it if you wish, but you have just as much chance to prevail as a struggle with the rising and setting of the sun
the world changes. not everyone benefits. deal with it. the consumer is king, and he/ she decides, and you follow what they say, end of story. and what the consumer has decided is that the entire edifice of laws, infrastructure and conglomerates that existed off of the pre-internet media distribution model has been rendered null and void. you are extinct
now fuck off and die already. your death throes are annoying, dinosaur. it does not reflect well on you when you have been destroyed and you don't see it or fail to accept it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Too much? If I had the money I'd spend 3 tymes that on vinyl I like. I'd pay $30 for The White Album or $50 for some of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, BTO, records. "Let It Ride", You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, Takin' Care of Business
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It is called Fascism.
It is when corporations merge with governments to make laws dictating how much wealth the consumer/citizen shall have.
So, since this is actually already being legislated, what does that say about the USA form of government?
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
>>>How can anyone honestly believe someones skills could be worth 2.2 million per year? Are his skills really that rare? Or maybe it's because big business leadership is an exclusive club where friends reward friends with huge sums of money?
No. It's a good thing we geeks know how to hack their billion-dollar bank acccounts.
Also what this COO is REALLY talking-about : you'll no longer be able to watch free episodes on syfy.com, tnt.com, abcfamily.com, and other cable websites. What is currently free will be removed from those sites and locked behind a Comcast website. Which means people like me will no longer be able to watch Greek or Stargate Universe (since I'm not a cable subscriber).
They are trying to sell this as an "improvement" but I'm not seeing it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I used to pay Comcast up to $100/month for a single TV reciever with a single DVR built in. The plan was a basic as I could stand, I care about SyFy not On Demand.
They wouldn't negotiate price when confronted with a competitors offering of the same and even better service. Tried to wing me with bad math behind the bubble of bundled services, ignoring that upstairs cable wiring in the house won't cut the signal needed for basic let alone internet and TV service - and the HOA is very picky about tearing up the outside wall, who pays, and what everybody has to do to connect the side of the duplex to the other end.
I get two TV recievers on a single box, two DVRs that can record two shows while playing two other shows, nearly the same program lineup sans all of two channels I care about, free installation of a dish - all for $30/month.
It's a no brainer, really.
the pills cost cents to make, but determining of they are safe costs hundreds of millions of dollars, plus lots of waste on stuff that doesn't pan out.
Bad example. The pharmaceutical industry spend much more on marketing than on research. The pharmaceutical industry doesn't even spend money to develop some drugs. The National Cancer Institute spent $183 million to develop and test the cancer drug Taxol. In 1988-9 Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMS) paid the NCI $43 million for exclusive rights to Taxol, $140 less than taxpayers paid for it. By 2000 BMS was making almost a billion dollars a year on Taxol. One dose of Taxol cost less than a dollar to make but one treatment cost thousands of dollars.
Don't tell me drug companies spend a lot to develop drugs.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Copyright is about legal technicalities and competing economic interests. There is nothing "moral" or "ethical" about the issue, full stop.
There is no "natural right" to a monopoly on reproduction of a creative work the way that there's a "natural" right to freedom of speech or something.
As Jefferson said, (sorry if I mangle the quote) "he who lights his taper at my candle enriches himself while taking nothing from me."
If you wanna talk about ethics around IP, the only questions that make sense to be framed as "ethical" are all on the side of the anti-copyright zealots. Things like "is it ethical for person A to restrict person B's freedom of speech" or "is it ethical to prohibit people from accessing life-saving drugs unless they give me money first?"
Those who wanna argue in favor of the status quo on copyright seem to be unable to come up with anything like a rational argument, so they've resorted to emotional appeals and attempts to make people feel guilty. But it's just not a moral or ethical issue, it's just a question of competing economic interests.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
I know you're joking, and this is off-topic, but your line of "depends on how hard you hit them" reminds me of something Bruce Schnier said about security policies - someone asked him, what's the best way to get users to follow our security policy?
He replied "Easy. Just fire someone, loudly and publicly, for violating security policy."
But as we all know, that virtually never happens, right? He pointed out that employees, when they violate security policies, are just rationally evaluating risks. There's the risk of "not getting their work done" vs "almost zero chance of negative consequences for breaking the rules".
So maybe it's not that "the most difficult thing to change is end-user behavior", more accurate thing to say would be "the most difficult thing to do is get users to change their behavior, in ways that make it harder to for them to get their work done, by asking them, when they don't understand why it's important."
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
OK, but the argument being made by people who talk about marginal production cost approaching zero aren't (ok, not all of them anyway) asking for stuff to be free - what I want is, the reduction in marginal cost of production to be reflected in the price I pay, for movies or tv or music.
Take movies, the worst offender IMO. Movie theater tickets have doubled in price in the last ooh, what? 15 years or so?
What people are suggesting is, if it costs 20 bucks to buy a DVD of "Terminator - Salvation" in a store, that a digital copy, with it's marginal cost of production, should be available for a fraction of that price.
The content owners want to do what every other corporation has done with new tech that brings down production costs - they want to realize all the benefits of new tech, but they want to keep the price structure of a pre-internet, bandwidth-scarce, world.
This is all really complicated, and difficult. We can have a lot of meaningful debate on where the price points should be. But a digital copy of something should be a fraction of the physical version, and that's something that every content owner is not only fighting, they're pretending the argument doesn't even exist.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Industry only needs to give money or invest in private educational institutions to get its beliefs indoctrinated. If we only had more private K-12 schools...
I suppose religious private schools would have to be approached differently...donations? thou shall not steal I.P?
ancillary streams: advertising, toy line tie ins, movie script deals, public speaking, personalized content, endorsements, live concerts, cinema house, paperback copies...
making money off of art is not going away and will never go away. fame can always be capitalized upon. the change is that instead of content being what is bought and sold, content is free advertising for the artist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'll copyright infringe until they stop making content, then I'll find something else to do.
Why? Because I was a good little consumer for years. Then I found that I couldn't skip the FBI warning on my purchased DVDs. Then there were unskippable ads. It became insulting and I took it personally. Then they bought laws to protect their business model at the expense of the people. Then I found out about the distribution networks that make it hard for the little guy to get their movies seen. The more restrictions they put on entertainment, the less I'm willing to pay. Now I only buy DVDs used for under $10. haven't been to the theater since the last LOTR movie.
Dinosaurs will die.
people create art. people always will create art. people will create art even if art is outlawed and the artist's family is set on fire: creating art is just part of our souls, what it means to be human. its never going away
where commerce comes into that fact is without meaning as to whether or not art is created. additionally, commerce DOES come into art, one way or another, and always will, also regardless of the legal/ distribution model: people will always be able to capitalize on fame, and fame is always the result of someone's art that is well-received
the ancillary stream model is how artists will make money. because its the ONLY VALID (not legally valid, but valid as in realistic and workable) way an artist can make money in a world where digital content is free. and it IS free, and will remain free, despite any UNENFORCEABLE law you can dream of. so just deal with that fact
"My advice to you would be to go ahead and try your ancillary revenue stream model, and see how well it works. I hope it works, but I don't think it will work as well as you think it will."
actually, i think the ancillary model means i most probably will be broke
but i am not arguing against my self, i am merely representing a truth of art: most artists are broke, were broke, and will forever more be broke. are you of some sort of delusion that the distribution model before the internet supported a great flourishing of arts and enabled millions of minor talents to support themselves? no, it only made distributors rich. art is something that only a few very talented and lucky will ever become dramatically rich at. and this is true whatever the hell the distribution model is
in fact, with an internet distribution model, consumers decide directly who deserves ancillary streams, such that minor talents will receive some financial benefit, however small, hat previously was impossible when distributors only paid attention to large revenue streams that were worth their time. simply because its artist-directly-linked-to-consumer. consumers deciding for themselves who deserves what, without an artificial filter placed in between where the small fry were always squeezed out. you tell me what happened to one hit wonders form the eighties. they got pennies, the distributors made millions. only the really huge acts were able to muscle in on the distributors cash bonanza. the rest were given bullshit contracts
the itnernet model is a democratic, egalitarian and capitalistically sound model than distributors artificially inserting themselves and their random judgments into the process. via legal contracts. which any artist will tell you, successful or not, is random, capricious, and nothing but a source of suffering. distributors decide what "quality" is, not consumers, which is fucking bullshit
the death of the distributor is only a good thing, financially and quality wise, for the artists, and will result in a great flowering of culture, not a die off
you somehow have it all backwards about why people create art and what they expect from the process. they do it out of love, and any riches are only an extra benefit. the artist does better in a distribution model that can potentially reward even the most minor acts, the consumer does better off free access to a richness of media, and distributor DIES THE FUCK OFF (obviously, not quietly)
die dinosaurs, just shut the fuck up and die already. you've been rendered extinct. you're parasites, you always were, but your necessary evil is no longer necessary. the internet did it. its called technological progress
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You missed the most appalling thing about this particular cable executives states of mind "An entire generation is growing up, if we don't figure out how to change that behaviour so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors". This ass hat seems intent on finding ways of taking over the minds of children and force them into becoming cable TV addicts willing to throw away all their income on feeding that addiction and note that he places the distributor ahead of the artist who he doesn't even mention.
That doesn't even tackle owned versus rented, all those DVD's. So between the internet (live, education, interaction and news) and DVD's (empty fluff entertainment) cable has no real space in the modern entertainment marketplace but, don't let that stop sociopath corporate executives from trying to come up with plans to take over the minds of children with modern mass media psychological marketing techniques (shame about that whole teenage rebellion thing).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
you have to understand this man is a politician ..at the higher levels of public companies all the execs are politicians...specialized ones who know the biz...
oddly enough we have gone past the point in america of trying to run the government like a company and are now running companies like governments...
this is a side effect of wide spread public ownership(401ks) among other things.
The only way to bust a doper--is when you yourself become a smoker!
this charge always amused me. the model i am portraying is the same model television and radio have been using for decades: content free to consumers, artists supported by ads, ancillary revenue. a model cooked up in the kitchen of extreme capitalism. why is that model communism or freeloading oh great genius?
in a model where artists and consumers interact directly, the most democratic, egalitarian and efficient model for determining quality is in effect. fame results. fame is capitalized upon. tiny bits of fame results. tiny bits of fame is capitalized in tiny ways. a true flowering of culture in a market free of artificial constraints. a market with constraints, a market where distributors are injected into the flow of culture via artificial legalistic means backed up by the government... hmmm... what does that sound like to you?
in the distributor model of control, the distributor decides quality on based on capiricious reasons, and ignores the small fish that aren't worth their time. inefficient, monopolistic
if you will recall in your exalted wisdom of what capitalism is, monopolistic practices, artificial manipulation of the market, is the enemy of capitalism, not its friend
your criticism of my words stems from ignorance of the concepts. you don't even know what capitalism fucking is. you just know how to hurl epithets, without even knowing what the ideas in play mean
try education next time. then post
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
what alien alternative universe do you live in where artists ever made art for cash? they do it for love. and, after making their art, what strange alternative world do you live in where artists were guaranteed income for making their art? in the pre-internet age, the 1980s, 1000 years ago, 1000 years from now: the vast majority of artists were, are, and forever will be, poor. only the hypertalented AND the lucky, a handful out of thousands, ever will experience great riches form art. this will never change, and the previous distribution model you are defending never promised any different
furthermore, unless you were a huge act, distributors wrote the contracts so they reaped the majority of profits. all those one hit wonders from the 1980s, after the free limos and airplane rides the distributor provided in exchange for signing away everything except pennies, were starving again a few years after their hits. you aren't defending a model that rewards artists, you are defending a model that rewards distributors. you are drinking some strong koolaid if you believe that model exists for the benefit of artists
meanwhile, in a world where artists give their works away for free, they make their living, as modest or rich as it may be, from ancillary sources of revenue. so even the tiniest acts, that distributors would ignore, still make a tiny income. even if this represents far less cash overall flowing around, direct artist-consumer links represent more cash for the artists, because in the previous model, distributors were siphoning off the majority of the cash. unless the artist was a huge sustained hit, then they could muscle in directly into the distributor's business model
concerts DO make money, and lots of it. when all of the bullshit legal setups are removed where the distributor isn't involved, there's even more cash involved
"Any art in future will be voluntary"
any art in the past, the present and the future always was and always will be voluntary
fact: art creates fame
fact: fame can be capitalized on in a million ways
do you deny any of those two facts? if you don't then you have no argument against me
just because your imagination is limited and you can't think beyond dead, entrenched business models is no valid argument against a superior distribution model that cuts out the middle man who adds no value
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Charter's latest assault 'committed' upon our fellow citizens is to require zipcodes appended to email IDs!
No wonder why Paul Allen sold stocks in Charter.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You used Apple and DRM in the same post and didn't connect them together?
Apple has been dropping DRM. That 99 cent song with DRM can be bought without DRM, and with a better bitrate, for $1.29.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
An open letter to anyone who cares:
I have been a cable subscriber for most of my 37 years. When my son was born four years ago, we ditched the cable "bundle" because we couldn't afford it. Well.. that was the primary reason anyway. The honest truth is that I got pretty sick of the content, and with a little one tugging at my pantleg, suddenly controlling content became a lot more important to me.
I am also an unapologetic nerd. I have four computers running on my home network, three of which I built with my own hands. One of those machines is an internet-connected home theater PC. At last count, there's about 70 movies and something like 300 CD's ripped and stored to the HTPC along with pictures and home movies. I'm approaching something like 400Gb of hand-selected content. Most of my collection is simply movies and CD's in disc form that I ripped and stored to the HTPC because three year olds do not understand that discs do not work better with ketchup. I've also gotten a netflix account since I learned that you can have them stream movies to your computer.
And, this past year saw the purchase of the MLB.tv season package. I got to watch any baseball game I choose any time for a flat fee of $100/year. In HD. I am in the process of liberating myself completely from the 'bundle" trap and I love it.
I am not saying that cable should just die quietly. I am arguing that it is only a matter of time before people get smart enough to realize that through their purchasing decisions, they can force change. I would love to have a web interface, for instance, that would allow me to buy only the channels I want to watch on a monthly basis.. channel by channel. It would mean a lower cable bill for me.. probably more people signing up for the cable companies.. plenty of content control for the parents among us and the freedom to catch your favorite show from a computer if you choose to do so. And.. best of all.. no more complaining about "there's nothing on". If you can't find anything on TV that you want to watch.. it's your fault! In an economy like ours, it would be a great benefit to me to be able to turn channels on and off as finances dictate.
Cable would be charging less, but they'd make it up in volume. Customers like me who have long since "cut the cord" would come back for only the content that interested them. There's another great revenue stream here, too.. cable could keep track of the channels that I buy and sell that data back to the content providers.. thereby providing feedback on what's popular and what isn't. Just think of the targeted advertising possibilities..
I am prepared for such a future, and I await the action of some bold and visionary exec at a cable company somewhere to take action.. grab this new and exciting model and move it forward.
That's called hyperbole. Look into it. That said, I can think of parts of companies I'm familiar with where there are at least 6 layers of management between the line level engineers and the top, and those aren't nearly as large as cable companies. I'm not saying the hierarchy needs to be shallower, though in most companies, you could lose one or two layers without any great loss. The point was that the management chains of companies whose CEOs or COOs think the customer is the enemy are almost always made up of butt kissers and back stabbers, so cleaning house and replacing the top few tiers of management is often very useful in improving the company, both in terms of its public image and in terms of how well it does business.
Okay, here's something more concrete if you'd like. Fiber everywhere. Coax is a maintenance nightmare. Between the corrosion, the reflection problems, etc., it can be an absolute bear, and the older the lines get, the worse the problems get. The longer you try to maintain legacy hardware like that, the more expensive it becomes to maintain. It quickly becomes more cost effective to just start over with better technology.
Here's something else. By using fiber, truck rolls go practically to zero. You can fully control who has access without bothering to unhook the lines. Good luck doing that with the unencrypted portion of coax signals.
Regarding the data portion of the infrastructure, well, that's the last mile of it. The rest of it is just leasing enough lines to handle the capacity. That said, I have some other ideas that can significantly reduce the number of those lines they have to lease....
Let's just say it isn't without years of fairly accurately predicting what will work and what won't. I certainly can't say that all of my ideas are a guaranteed goldmine, but several of them are pretty much slam dunks, involving fairly minimal financial outlay and significant customer benefit. I also have some ideas for designing standards that would allow content providers to interact with P2P clients built into the CPEs to drastically reduce the average bandwidth overhead of digital delivery. By being a leader and pushing for such open standards in these areas, it will improve the customer experience and reduce bandwidth utilization dramatically, again, all without huge engineering effort (as in, the sort of thing I could build on my own in a couple of weeks).
I could go on with infrastructure ideas, but I'd probably bore you. I'm not going to talk about the more visible customer-facing ideas. They're too interesting, as they're the sort of thing I could do in a startup without the cable companies' help if I wanted to do so..
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Art that can be digitally replicated retains some sort of value, which means you can wait for it to become ripped or whatever and still get something out of it.
I support copyrights because it is so easy to rip someone off, especially digitally. Without copyright protection people have little reason, other than ego, to produce works of art. Some of your volunteers are those who need their ego stroked. Because of an accident more than 10 years ago I survived an injury that caused a disability. Since then I have have been collecting disability insurance, though they've been screwing with it since the beginning of the year, and I haven't worked. For a few difference reasons I hope to start a photography business and I don't want someone else to be able to take my photos and make money off of them without me being paid as well. Quite simply I don't want to spend thousands of dollars for equipment and supplies only for someone else to take my photos and sell them as their own denying me the income of selling them myself. If you don't feel they are worth it fine, but don't rip me off. On the other hand, if I'm asked and it's explained why a photo can't be paid, or why it would be hard to pay, for I may come to an agreement on the exchange of products and or services. I am more than willing to barter. For instance I may take a photo assignment at no cost if the person it is for can arrange a gallery showing for my photos.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There are some things (like Windows....well, pretty much only Windows) that I pirate and would pay for (well, at least for Windows 7) but they charge such an absurd price for it that they won't get my money regardless of if I pirate it or not. If people are pirating your product in large quantities, it's a huge flag that says "you're chargint too much!" - that's why MS has dropped the price of Windows to about $50 in China - because so many people pirated it. If you could buy a full version of Windows 7 for $100, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Instead, for $150 or so, you get a feature-deprived UPGRADE copy. If you want a real copy of the OS, it'll run you $300-400.
The other things I pirate are because I want to try it before I pay money. If it's good, I'll buy it (I own several hundred dvd's I've bought). If it's not good, I won't buy it. Now, some might try to claimt that I'd have bought the not so good ones anyways - wrong. If I don't know that something is good, I won't buy it. That means not only would they still not have recieved money for the crappy movies, but they wouldn't have recieved the money I paid for the good ones because I'd never have tried them and saw that they were good. Every other product you can try before you buy it, movies / tv shows shouldn't be any different.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I had a fellow come to my door and ask what Comcast could do to return to them as a customer. My answer was that I would return if they became another company. I went to Verizon and my services work, They're less expensive and I do not have to deal with Comcast customer service at all. Verizon has been a pleasant experience over all for me in the Baltimore/DC metro corridor (Columbia, MD).
I think Verizon has a much better chance of changing my behavior than Comcast does particularly so considering I've been so happy without them in my life for the last two years now. This is competition in action: A better company came along and ate their lunch.
bob@Osprey:~>
Your right I bet he would do it better...
The only reason cable companies could historically charge the ridiculous fees for TV service is because the only real alternative has been an expensive satellite dish.
Around here, Minneapolis/St Paul, satellite is cheaper than cable. I am paying more than $60 to ComCast for cable TV, for the basic package. DirecTV's basic family package is $30 a month with no equipment to buy or startup costs. Though more expensive than DirecTV Dishnetwork is cheaper than ComCast as well. For this reason I am thinking of switching from cable to satellite.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
and I would say you (or the person who dealt those figures) sucks at math(s)
being the COO of a multi-billion dollar company is not an easy job
Actually, I beg to differ. Most C*O's delegate all the difficult stuff. The daily routine involves coming in at 10 (actually being chauffeured in), discussions with top Execs over strategic planning, meeting up for golf, planning the next board meeting at whatever companies whose boards they are on and leaving at 4 to avoid traffic. I think there are exceptions to this who work more like the Lee Iaccoca model, but many see it as a privilege rather than a job. IMHO.
"everyone has to live by your rules"
i'm not describing rules
i'm describing reality
i'm not enforcing anything on anyone
what i am describing is simply what is happening, what is
do you understand darling?
do you see what is happening in front of you?
i hope you've enjoyed shooting the messenger
xoxoxoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you really think the end of the distribution model of the era of lps and cassette tapes is the end all be all model of art and commerce?
it really is the end of art in your mind? you really can't imagine how money can still be made? fucking hysterical drama queen
the movie industry was certain television would kill them... then the vcr... then the internet... every threat was panty twisting armageddeon
and the movie industry is still around, making more money every year
please, grow a brain and a fucking pair of testicles
life goes the fuck on
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sure, I'll be happy to change my behavior. I'm MORE than happy to switch from bitching and moaning to locking and loading.
BTW, might wanna invest in some kevlar undies.
Except that his example of only needing it once, and thus pirating it, can be attributed to the same thing: content "owner" interference. They put the kibosh on renting/borrowing software.
Someone above posted right on the nose: copyright is about legislation and money. There's no morality or ethics involved.
yeah. and what you get if you fuck up and cost dozens...hundreds...thousands of employees their livelihood...or loose millions of the shareholders dollars, or take a big plunge in market sharte
A golden parachute and a great future of consulting gigs after.
Ask Cindy Fiorina.
The pharmaceutical industry spend much more on marketing than on research.
Agreed.
Don't tell me drug companies spend a lot to develop drugs.
Drug companies spend a lot to develop drugs. Sorry to say it, but it is still true. If they didn't spend a dime on marketing and administration they'd still be spending many billions of dollars a year on development.
You cited taxol as an example, but it is an extremely atypical example. It is rare for government agencies to do any development of a drug candidate at all. Typically somebody comes up with a proof of concept molecule and a couple of tests that suggests that it might do something. It is extremely rare for a government agency to fund full clinical trials, and those are the most expensive part of a drug development effort by far. Additionally, I couldn't find any clear indication online that the government had funded complete clinical trials - perhaps just phase I trials which don't cost much, and also which don't detect many issues which tend to kill drugs.
I'm not sure what kind of a bidding process was used to sell Taxol, but if it was competitive, then there must have been a reason that nobody offered big money for it. If it wasn't competitive then it was just an example of government corruption.
In any case, I'm sure BMS still invested more money into producing Taxol than is spent on the typical movie or record album, which was the whole point of the comparison. The marginal cost of production doesn't cover those costs. If a new drug like Taxol were allowed to be sold completely royalty-free it would be difficult to even recoup the costs that were paid just to license it from the government in the first place.
Drugs and movies also have other things in common. The cost of failures is amortized into the profits of successes. With drugs it is almost impossible to predict whether a given molecule is going to turn out to be safe, and it isn't uncommon for drug programs to get canceled even after hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on them. For movies you'd think that success would be a lot easier to predict, but there are still lots of flops out there where investors make no money, or little money. So, when doing the accounting for a successful production you do need to consider the risk of failure. A $100M investment that makes $2B seems like a huge success, but if the risk of failure was 99% then it was a foolish investment. It is like saying that we need to do something about all those rich lottery winners getting away with murder - they only have costs of $1 and yet they make $50M. Sure, if you only look at the winners it seems that way, but lottery winners are just lucky fools. The comparison breaks down since no rational investor would ever buy lottery tickets, but drugs and movies are areas where profits can currently be made (but not if the product is priced at marginal cost plus a few percent).
Slashdot thinks in terms of right or wrong. Businesses thinks in terms of priorities.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
How can the price of entertainment be justified? I pay for Internet, not for cable and receive all the entertainment I could wish plus the other benefits of the net. If I had cable I would have to memorize when the shows were on and schedule my life around them or use time shifting technology. And TV programming is 95% garbage. It has become worse in the age of cable, not better. So my plan for an entertainment center will be to use a PC with a widescreen monitor and a fast Internet connection. If I were the cable companies I would be concerned - people will figure out that paying for cable is a poor value. (Sorry for the formatting of this post. I haven't been able to discover what code Slashdot uses to put a carriage return in a post - the regular carriage return doesn't seem to work.)
Corporations and their money buy politicians and dictate most US policy (including nonsense wars) therefore we live in the Corporate States of America.
I'm too busy to schedule programs. I need to watch when I have time to.
Nope, it's just that the market for psychopaths is rather small.
I bet most of you would not want to do the dirty part of the job, which is the part that makes such a post make this money.
Here's how it works. Acme Co. makes $1 billion dollars in 2009, an increase in revenues of 20% from the previous year.
In some cases, the higher-up officers may have negotiated large contracts and such that brought in that money and are deserving of a (sizable) bonus as a result (as far as the board is concerned).
More often than not, however, they don't do a whole lot aside from "network" with a Blackberry in one hand and a midday martini in the other, and they make several hundred thousand to several hundred million every year.
I suppose that's two opposite ends of the company officer spectrum. On the one hand you'll have people like Warren Buffet, who built the company from the ground up and is probably still involved in the day-to-day operations to some large degree nowadays. On the other hand, there's lots of business - especially tech companies - that have the business equivalent of a constitutional monarchy. The officer(s) make no real important decisions, but they're the personality behind the business. They're the ones that make the presentations at big shows, and they're the ones that bring home the big checks.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I'm a happy subscriber to time-warner, with only basic cable and hi-speed internet. I remember when the cable co first came through my town. There were loads of referendum meetings and etc. They spent a couple years yammering about how they wouldn't need ads anymore, and etc. I would give my left huejas to be able to pick and choose only the chans that I actually watch. Furthermore, I would be glad to pay for them, if only these knuckle-heads could get that idea. After all, I'm already paying, and big time at that. Now that digital and HD TV is rolled out across my area (upstate NY), I think this is inexcusable. So would somebody plz send a quick memo to this asshat? And hint, yes I *have* operated at the CxO and VP level.
C|N>K
If a new drug like Taxol were allowed to be sold completely royalty-free it would be difficult to even recoup the costs that were paid just to license it from the government in the first place.
You say it like Taxol was sold with the NCI getting royalties, when in fact Taxol was sold royalty free, and to to only one company. The NCI could have licensed it for say a hundred dollars a dose to any company that wanted to manufacture it. Said companies could then compeat with each other for market share and profits. Once the costs of development and testing was recouped, plus a little extra for more research, it could be put into the public domain for anyone to use royalty free.
it isn't uncommon for drug programs to get canceled even after hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on them
And those costs are tax deductible. Also one blockbuster drug can pay for the research, development, and testing for a bunch of other drugs. Recall how I said BMS was estimated to be making almost a billion dollars in Taxol sales a year by 2000? Well Taxol isn't even on that list of blockbuster drugs.
The comparison breaks down since no rational investor would ever buy lottery tickets
Actually a company tried to do that. One company wanted to buy every combination of numbers for the Florida lottery, it was in a lot of newspapers. Buy a ticket with every possible number and one of them will be a winner. By itself the prize wouldn't be enough to pay for all the tickets but because so many tickets were sold with the prize being determined on how many tickets were sold everyone and their family was buying tickets as well driving up the prize.
Unfortunately the logic fails, if I recall right the grand prize got 50% of the pot and as more tickets are sold the number of winning tickets potentially grows as well, thus proving your point.
but drugs and movies are areas where profits can currently be made (but not if the product is priced at marginal cost plus a few percent).
Ah but companies enjoy patent monopolies and can set their own prices for a number of years before they have to compeat with others for the market share of a drug. Combined with blockbuster drugs there should be enough to cover the cost of drug research. But if that isn't enough then the companies can cut their marketing costs, which are more than research.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Really. That's the whole fucking point! We value all the wrong things...
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
-Possum Lodge Motto
The NCI could have licensed it for say a hundred dollars a dose to any company that wanted to manufacture it.
Absolutely - of course the NCI would actually have to fund development of the drug all the way to completion for anybody to be interested. I'm actually a big fan of this model for drugs that the government does wish to fund - do the development soup-to-nuts and don't sell the patent rights at all.
And those costs are tax deductible.
All corporate costs are tax deductible - corporations pay taxes on profits so if you reduce your profits you reduce your taxes. That doesn't mean that corporations are happy when their profits are reduced.
Also one blockbuster drug can pay for the research, development, and testing for a bunch of other drugs.
Absolutely. But, only if you can sell the blockbuster drug for what the market will bear. If you are forced to sell at near-marginal-cost (the whole point of this thread) then there are no blockbuster drugs.
I'm not saying that the status quo doesn't make any money for pharma companies, just like nobody is saying that the status quo didn't make money for record labels or movie producers (the whole point of this thread). The argument was made that you can still make records and movies when you're only selling product for a hair over the marginal cost of distribution, and my argument was that this doesn't work for bigger-ticket items like movies and drugs.
Ah but companies enjoy patent monopolies and can set their own prices for a number of years before they have to compeat with others for the market share of a drug. Combined with blockbuster drugs there should be enough to cover the cost of drug research. But if that isn't enough then the companies can cut their marketing costs, which are more than research.
Well, sure, that's how it works right now. However, the whole point of this discussion was whether you can make initial-cost-heavy-marginal-cost-light items without IP protection. If you get rid of p2p copying of music it is trivially easy to make money off of movies. If you envision a world where everybody has a super-quality home theater and easy access to free downloads, then it isn't so easy to make money off of movies. Likewise, if you have a world where there are no drug patents then it isn't all that easy to make money off of drugs either.
I'm not trying to suggest that drug companies didn't make money in the 90s. I am suggesting that it is hard for drug and movie makers to make money in the 2010s. This isn't an easy problem to fix unless you just have the government do ALL the drug R&D and pay for movie production as well.
Solid business acumen, or wildly inappropriate, juvenile dementia? It is sometimes hard to tell with telecom executives.
***
"Should I fashion my company's products to serve the deserving customer, who has allowed us our current level of success (including my own egregious salary), or painfully bend their very minds to my will and ruefully punish those who do not fall immediately into line?"
-- excerpt, The Dark Lord of The Sith School of Business: Markets 101
Also one blockbuster drug can pay for the research, development, and testing for a bunch of other drugs.
Absolutely. But, only if you can sell the blockbuster drug for what the market will bear. If you are forced to sell at near-marginal-cost (the whole point of this thread) then there are no blockbuster drugs.
I never said otherwise. A company should be able to sell something for whatever price they want as long as they spent their own money developing and testing it. If BMS had spent it's own money to develop Taxol instead of the taxpayers then while I may grumble about their prices I'd also let them set the price. I'm angry about it because the taxpayers paid for it not BMS.
the whole point of this discussion was whether you can make initial-cost-heavy-marginal-cost-light items without IP protection.
And I argue that if duplications costs are low, which they are with copyrighted goods, they should have limited monopolies. Without copyrights it's difficult to make a profit which I've been arguing all this tyme. Previously I said I am disabled and currently don't work but I want to start a photography business. Without copyrights I seriously doubt I'd want to do it. Why would I spend the thousands of dollars to start the business when someone else who didn't spend the money could come along and take my work without paying me?
Likewise, if you have a world where there are no drug patents then it isn't all that easy to make money off of drugs either.
Actually there is a proposal to fund drug research without patents, see An alternative to pharmaceutical patents. There are others but that's the only link I have.
I'm not trying to suggest that drug companies didn't make money in the 90s. I am suggesting that it is hard for drug and movie makers to make money in the 2010s.
According to the article Why Health Insurers Make Lousy Villains, dated 25 August 2009 "Pharmaceutical companies have a profit margin of 16.4 percent--seventh highest of the 215 industries that Morningstar tracks." Seventh highest out of 215? I wouldn't say the pharmaceutical industry is finding it hard to make a profit.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
See, this is right where I write you off as a fucking moron. Slashdot is not your "bff jill", get a real keyboard and use real fucking words.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
I went to flat text. Then hitting return works.
There is a code- I think it is or
.
Wasn't worth the hassle for me.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
A similar lethargy in adapting to new market realities has cost the established record industry massively. If you hear your management talking utter nonsense like this, you know its time to have them removed before they do any further damage.
Actually there is a proposal to fund drug research without patents, see An alternative to pharmaceutical patents. There are others but that's the only link I have.
I've proposed something similar, but with a bit of a twist:
Leave patents exactly how they are right now. If a company develops a drug it can charge whatever the market will bear.
In parallel, go ahead and beef up government R&D just as the site you linked proposed. The government programs would fund the whole development process from start to end (not just stopping at the early basic research point). Any drugs that come out of the effort could be manufactured by anybody royalty-free, so they'll be dirt cheap. The government could even hire industry to do parts of the work if it made sense, but this would be a strict work-for-hire effort with the government paying the full bill but keeping the patent rights.
So, in the end we have competition between government and private efforts. Some fear that the government won't do a good job, and if that happens we'll at least have the status quo to fall back on. Some argue that the government can do the whole thing on its own, and if that turns out to be true chances are the private industry will naturally wither away since they can't compete with the resulting cheap drugs. Either way consumers win with the competition, and the risk of messing up and killing the goose that laid the golden egg is a lot lower.
The government programs would fund the whole development process from start to end (not just stopping at the early basic research point)
That is what the NCI did with Taxol, it did everything to win FDA approval for use of Taxol as a drug. Everything. If NCI had wanted to, and laws or regulations allowed, the NCI could have applied to the FDA for approval with the date they had.
Some argue that the government can do the whole thing on its own, and if that turns out to be true chances are the private industry will naturally wither away since they can't compete with the resulting cheap drugs.
The problem with government paying for research is the government isn't concerned about making a profit, unlike a business which has to make profit government can spend unsightly somes of money. For myself, I disapprove of the federal government paying for research because it is not a constitutionally authorized power of the federal government. While I support the National Institutes of Health, of which the NCI is part of, and the CDC or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention I'd privatize them. Either make them businesses or non-profits. The FDA I'd abolish altogether.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
With a view like that, it makes me wonder how long comcast will be around.
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