RIAA/MPAA: the Greatest Threat To Tech Innovation

TAGmclaren writes "The Harvard Business Review is running an article stating that it's not India or China that are the greatest threat to technological innovation happening in America. Rather, it's the 'big content' players, particularly the movie and music industry. From the article: 'the Big Content players do not understand technology, and never have. Rather than see it as an opportunity to reach new audiences, technology has always been a threat to them. Example after example abounds of this attitude; whether it was the VCR which was "to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone" as famed movie industry lobbyist Jack Valenti put it at a congressional hearing, or MP3 technology, which they tried to sue out of existence.'"

Comments

Simplistic view

[girlintraining]

These corporations are not a threat to tech innovation: Voter apathy is the threat. In every country where intellectual property concepts have been strengthened by legal precident, it has done so because the issues are too complex for the average person to understand. They are uninformed, and unable to feel any sentiments towards what is happening one way or another. They may vaguely understand that it is wrong, but being unable to form a cohesive argument against it, they shrug and move on. It's intellectually dishonest to place the blame on a handful of individuals and corporations for this situation. If you really want to drill down to the root cause of this, it's our poor public education system and a lack of training on using critical thinking skills that has caused this, and many other, social ills. And that's true globally, not just in the United States. Wherever you cut back education and voter participation falls, corruption grows and corporations become more powerful.

Re:Simplistic view

[Nidi62]

I wouldn't call it voter apathy. I would simply say most voters are more concerned about whether or not they will be able to afford rent or the mortgage next month, or have enough money left after taxes to take their kids on that vacation, or even just be able to put good, healthy food on the table for them. When ordering priorities for a lot of people, being able to listen to music in any format they want or being able to stream the newest episode of whatever TV show online falls pretty low on the list.

Re:Simplistic view

[Labcoat Samurai]

These corporations are not a threat to tech innovation: Voter apathy is the threat. In every country where intellectual property concepts have been strengthened by legal precident, it has done so because the issues are too complex for the average person to understand. They are uninformed, and unable to feel any sentiments towards what is happening one way or another. They may vaguely understand that it is wrong, but being unable to form a cohesive argument against it, they shrug and move on.

In my experience, inability to form a cohesive argument doesn't stop people from having strong convictions. I won't politicize this with examples, but there are a lot of people out there who are very passionate about issues despite having incoherent, nonsensical rationale.

It's intellectually dishonest to place the blame on a handful of individuals and corporations for this situation. If you really want to drill down to the root cause of this, it's our poor public education system and a lack of training on using critical thinking skills that has caused this, and many other, social ills. And that's true globally, not just in the United States. Wherever you cut back education and voter participation falls, corruption grows and corporations become more powerful.

The problem is that they don't care, though. I'm not sure how you can educate the apathy out of them. I remember school, and I remember that people were apathetic then, too. If it wasn't something the directly impacted their priorities, they tuned out and couldn't give a shit. What's unfortunate is that there's not necessarily anything about this issue that *does* directly impact their priorities, so provided you can't change that thinking, there may be no way to get people to care. At least no way to get them to care enough to research and critically examine these issues themselves.

Also, I'm not even sure it's a skill you can teach everyone. I've run into some staggeringly irrational people, and I'm skeptical that it's all because their school didn't do its job.

Re:Simplistic view

[__u63]

Voter apathy is merely a symptom of a larger problem -- a legislative system that decentralizes decision making so much that elected officials are accountable only to their local constituencies and large campaign contributors and a legal system that is focused on the minutiae of rules and processes and that is all too content to lose sight of the bigger picture. We should accept low voter turnouts in the US as a given for the time being and try to work out a system that will optimize responsible decision making on the part of elected officials.

Re the subject of this article -- until IP law is revised, the RIAA/MPAA will basically have free reign to do silly things. US IP law is badly broken, something we've been complaining about on Slashdot for years. It will not be revised until there is sensible campaign contribution reform and an organized grassroots political movement.

Re:Simplistic view

[girlintraining]

I wouldn't call it voter apathy. I would simply say most voters are more concerned[...]When ordering priorities for a lot of people[...]falls pretty low on the list.

I think the distinction is academic. Whether you don't care, or don't care enough the end result is the same: Inaction. Now, I'm going to come dangerously close to Godwinning the discussion here, but I feel an excerb from Elie Wiesel's speech The Perils of Indifference sheds some light on this distinction. Keep in mind that what he was discussing was many orders of magnitude more severe than what we are talking about, but the principle is the same.

What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.

What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?

Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.

[Source]

Re:Simplistic view

[gravis777]

I think the problem is more along the lines of ignorant politicians. The USA is not a truely democratic society - ie we do not vote on every law that comes down, but instead we are a representative democracy. You really cannot vote for someone on a certain issue of none of your candidates understands the issue. In the few cases where a political party emerges that does understand (like the Pirate Party or something), they normally only have strong convictions about technologies and copyright. While that is all important, a politician with no major party backing, who has no clear cut agendas on things such as the economy, healthcare, education, enviornment, or any of the other hot topics, is probably going to recieve little votes.

Sadly, in the way the US government is setup, about the only way that progress is going to be made is if Party leaders come out, set forth guidelines of where the party stands in matters of copyright, get current politicians behind them, and then see where the votes lead. A half-dozen Congressmen who understand copyright and technology issues are probably going to have a hard time pushing reform through Congress if the other 400 members don't even know what an iPod or an MP3 or bittorrent even is.

Re:Simplistic view

[postbigbang]

The ostensible 'inaction' really has nothing to do with the core problem. The music industry has an evolved business ecosystem, and can blithely ignore whatever technology you want to throw at them.

They fund the band, they control the media and also who the 'stars' are going to be, they do the tour promotions, link to the ticket companies, edit the fan pages, and so on. This is an ecosystem. You have to kill most parts of it and re-do it to make indie music work. I have friends and relatives that are in the indie business. They compete with huge wads of cash and a set of walls at each turn of the road to riches. Their fans just want the music; they'd just like a little money to keep from starving.

In the motion picture industry (sounds old, doesn't it?) it's the same set of characteristics. Studios, producers, theaters, TV, syndication, stars stars hype stars. The indie film makers have their own festivals, but at the root of their desire is artistic expression and oh, gotta pay the bills. At each turn of the road, they, too, face an entrenched set of business ecosystems. To fight this, you have to replace the ecosystems, 'cause people have to eat and get paid. Lacking that, you're fighting windmills.

IP Laws as a whole are flawed

[imgod2u]

Treating all IP in every industry the same way is flawed to begin with and the barrier to entry to stake a claim on an idea is way too easy.

The whole point of IP is to encourage innovation by providing incentive for the inventor. Today's IP laws are a flimsy shadow of that. Studios and IP troll companies collect the rewards and inventors are relegated to idea-generating grunts.

There is no inherent morality to ownership of an idea; it is something granted by the public to individual holders of IP for the benefit of the public. If at any time, said laws are detrimental to the public, it should be repealed.

Of course, that would require a government that isn't bought and paid for and a populace that's at least decently educated and informed.

More important is the government’s collusion

[InsurrctionConsltant]

1. It’s great to see this coming (finally) from a well-respected business source. The Lessigs, Doctorows and even Nissons of this world are potentially dismissed as impractical ideologues; not so Harvard Business.

2. The things that really makes me sad and angry is the continuing complicity of the US government in the RIAA & MPAA’s money-grabbing, price-fixing, collusive monopolistic ransom-holding of contemporary cultural output. From the anti-democratic secret ACTA treaty shenanigans to Joe Biden’s White House lunches with the Big Content and law enforcement, even Obama, by far the most technologically forward thinking president ever, has completely failed to comprehend the nature of the problem, despite excellent books on the subject, notably Lessig’s Free Culture.

I thought Obama would change this, because his election campaign was funded by crowd-sourcing and he railed against the “Special interests” in public debates.

It’s the public’s interests vs. those of a business elite with a powerful lobby. Guess where the Administration’s placing its support. Change we can believe in, indeed.

What about the children?

[rabun_bike]

That is akin to the "what about the artists?" statement the industry always uses. What about the artists? They make most of their money from live performances since they don't have to pay the record industry to perform their songs live (usually). "Artists are paid royalties usually somewhere between 3% and 25% of the suggested retail price of the recording. Exactly where it falls depends on the clout of the artist (a brand new artist might receive less than a well-known artist). From this percentage, a 25% deduction for packaging is taken out (even though packaging rarely costs 25% of the total price of the CD)." The US Supreme Court recently refused to hear the Eminem/Universal case upon which the lower courts had ruled in Eminem's favor that he should receive 50% of revenue from downloaded songs versus the 3 to 5% he was receiving based on CD licensing agreements. That's a big deal and really does put money back in the artists pocket. If the record industry was really concerned about the poor artists they would not be fighting to keep their 95-97%. http://www.prefixmag.com/news/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-eminemuniversal-case/50487/

to further this topic

[Mr.Fork]

Michael Geist, Canada's copyright law guru and law prof at the University of Ottawa, posted an interesting observation about the copyright fight a lot of these organizations like RIAA and MPAA engage. It's marketing failure, not bad behaviour that is the cause of piracy.

Meaning, it's RIAA and the MPAA failure to properly price their products at a reasonable level that makes the consumer believe that the purchase is reasonable. I mean, if a movie to buy was $1 or $2, would you purchase it or DL it? If a music CD was $3, not $20, would you own your own copy? Or if they offered monthly subscriptions, like the Netflix model, would you subscribe or pirate?

Not only are they missing the boat and stifling innovation, they're attacking and going after consumers who don't believe the purchase is worth the money and then lobby governments to put in CRAZY laws that illegally downloading a movie can cost you $250,000 + 5 years in jail if you're charged and found guilty. Yet get in your car drunk and kill a family of 5, spend 2-3 years in jail + $50,000 in legal fees.

Is it me, or does the who copyright debate sound complete like corporate sheit they've bought and paid for and then rammed down our throats?

Re:to further this topic

[Drakkenmensch]

Not only are they missing the boat and stifling innovation, they're attacking and going after consumers who don't believe the purchase is worth the money and then lobby governments to put in CRAZY laws that illegally downloading a movie can cost you $250,000 + 5 years in jail if you're charged and found guilty. Yet get in your car drunk and kill a family of 5, spend 2-3 years in jail + $50,000 in legal fees. Is it me, or does the who copyright debate sound complete like corporate sheit they've bought and paid for and then rammed down our throats?

The moral to this story is that when a piracy crime is worse than a murder charge, you should simply kill anyone threatening you with a copyright lawsuit and get away with a slap on the wrist. Shakespeare's "But first let's kill all the lawyers" has never made more sense than it does now.

If Intellectual property really is property

[Anonymous Coward]

Why cant there be a property tax on it?

Re:obvious?

[ThePromenader]

Please allow me to clarify:

Gramaphone == Threat to live performances!
Radio == Threat to the Gramaphone industry!
Blank Cassettes == Threat to the Record (gramaphone) industry!
Burnable CD's == Threat to the Record (and Cassette) industry!
Mp3's + web == We're all gonna die!

Not big content---big everything.

[Bobzibub]

Big Oil is why you fight wars.
Big Insurance is why you can't have the health care you want.
List goes on.

In the end, it is that Big has too much sway in the political system. They pay little tax yet have a disproportionate amount of influence.

Re:Not big content---big everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we'd end up with "Big Moderation", and everything would go to hell.

Re:The VCR? No

[Digital Vomit]

Check out Johannes Gutenberg (of Project Gutenberg fame

Yeah, his online archive of out-of-copyright books was a great idea, but what has he done lately?