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The Many Battle Fronts of Content Owners
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:26 PM
from the mapping-the-forces dept.
from the mapping-the-forces dept.
museumpeace writes "This community constantly chews on stories like the first sale doctrine and the endless maneuvering of RIAA, MPAA, follies of DMCA and DRM in general. I think of each of those stories as like trying to make sense of a particular earthquake. In the Huffington Post, blogger Jonathan Handel succinctly lays out six tectonic market and technology forces that provide a map for all of this. Sample his point #5, the media is the money: 'Fifth is market forces in the technology industry. Computers, web services, and consumer electronic devices are more valuable when more content is available. In turn, these products make content more usable by providing new distribution channels. Traditional media companies are slow to adopt these new technologies, for fear of cannibalizing revenue...'"
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Lineker points out a report that the European Parliament has rejected plans to criminalize file-sharing by private individuals. The amendment to remove the anti-piracy measures passed by a vote of 314-297. The decision is expected to influence how France, with its strict anti-piracy polices, approaches this issue when it assumes the EU presidency later this year. From InfoWorld:
"France's so-called Oliviennes strategy to combat copyright abuse includes a 'three strikes and you are out' approach: Offenders lose the right to an Internet account after being caught sharing copyright-protected music over the Internet for a third time. The report is significant because it 'signifies resistance among MEPs to measures currently being implemented in France to disconnect suspected illicit filesharers,' the Open Rights Group said in a statement.
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Your Rights Online: Universal Attacks First Sale Doctrine 297 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In Universal Music Group v. Augusto, UMG is attacking the first sale doctrine. The issue concerns some promotional CDs that were mailed out, and later found their way to eBay. According to UMG, the stickers on the discs claiming that they still own the CD give them a legal right to control what the recipients do with them, and thus, UMG should be able to dictate terms. The EFF has filed an amicus brief countering that claim, saying that because they were sent by US mail, unrequested by the recipient, they are in fact gifts, no matter what the sticker claims. If UMG somehow wins this, I plan to send them CD of copyrighted expletives with a sticker informing them of the contractually required storage location. We discussed a similar issue with e-books a couple weeks ago."
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Totally offtopic (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Movie ticket sales at record high [latimes.com].
- Cable company reports record sales [primenewswire.com].
- Digital sales boost music industry [variety.com].
Should I go on?He may be correct about newspapers declining, but the other points I believe are false.
Re: (Score:2)
That helps prove his point that fewer people are consuming music "the old-fashioned way." Their sales are compensated by newer forms of distribution.
Your first link is broken, but the second only refers to revenue being up. That revenue for a cable company can increase by more ways than just new TV customers.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
do is tread water. They continue to provide what they have always provided to whom
they always provide it (much like Microsoft).
The status quo is for cable companies to stay more or less in the same place.
If people were really doing what the commentator says then you would see a sudden
drop in cable revenue as people begin to cancel their cable subscriptions. I know
torrent freaks that have done this.
However, this is a relatively rare thing.
This article also ignores the possibility of people buying conventional
content for the express purpose of using it for thier new technology. A
bunch of DVD's ripped into a media center can be a thing of beauty.
Ultimately all content has to compete with each other. One game studio
owner once said that their games have to compete with everything else
a person could do including sex. So their games have to be better than
sex.
One part of the media market could be getting sacked by another. If the
RIAA is whining it could be because of the rise of DVD collections and
video games. It doesn't even need to be due to some other sort of "sea
change".
As I often like to say... I got distracted on my way to the CD aisle
buy that big bin of $5 DVDs and those racks of $7.50 DVDs...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Couldn't they try to popularize gaming among individuals for whom sexual partnership is not an immediate entertainment alternative?
Sometimes in business the most effective strategies are not the obvious ones!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
I can make more money selling 90 widgets at $6 than selling 100 widgets at $5.
A quick google search for ("movie ticket sales" record high) comes up with about 600 items, most of which reference the same quote.
- but rising ticket prices and a weakening dollar accounted for much of the increase,
the Motion Picture Association of America said Wednesday."Another quote from the same article http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20080305/120477504000.html [yahoo.com]
- admissions unchanged at 1.4 billion tickets sold,
and ticket prices 5 percent higher at an average $6.88.Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And that, more than anything else, is my hope. I haven't needed cable or sa
the term "disruptive technology" (Score:5, Interesting)
however, in this case, the term disruptive technology is entirely functional: the internet is completely destroying the music industry
the book industry and the movie industry are standing in handcuffs on the stairs to the guillotine, helplessly watching their brethren being beheaded. they watch in disbelief as the cheering masses they used to lord over relish the sight of the bloodsport of their demise
i'm sorry, but a free and open network where any media can be transmitted effortlessly and without interception is not a business opportunity. its a replacement for an industry based on distribution. people keep talking about the fact that the music industry could have gotten in front of changing technology and used it to their advantage, rather than change taking place without them while they sat in denial. i have the contrary opinion: i think the music industry would never have been able to get in front of this steamroller
they were never able to, no matter how much time they had to prepare. there is simply no way for the music industry to harness the internet to their continued existence. the internet, the substance of it, is simply anathema to what they do: charge a fee for music distribution. the internet is simply replacing them. effortless free distribution has no economics too it. there's no money to be made
of course there is money to be made in related industries: concerts, advertising tie-ins, band and brand building, etc. but anything having to do with distributing media is simply a free advertising platform, nothing more. the anicllary businesses is what the music industry will morph into, a decimated diminished form of its former self
the only way the music industry could survive unaltered by the internet is to invent a time machine and go back to the 1960s and murder the arpanet researchers. you cannot harness that which means your doom. asking or expecting the music industry to get in front of technological change and make it work for them is like asking the incan and aztec nobility to get in front of the spanish conquistadors and use them to their advantage. as in: no way that's going to happen
your doom is your doom. music distribution conglomerates are simply a business model for the historical dustbin. there is no other way to interpret what the internet means to them. the internet is not a "business challenge" for them to meet with fast footwork and fancy innovative thinking. it is simply an appointment with death. and i will be mourning their passing just as soon as i get over my shock and pain over the passing of the dtuch east india company. as in: who cares. the world keeps turning, life keeps changing. its a done deal. the story is over. goodbye sony bmg, bertelsmann, et al. buh bye. stop banging on your coffin. your dead. realize it
Re:the term "disruptive technology" (Score:4, Insightful)
i think the music industry would never have been able to get in front of this steamroller
I think your point would be better served to agree that the music industry could have gotten in front of this steamroller, but they would have gotten run over anyway.
I half agree with you and half disagree. The music industry cannot survive as-is in the Internet-age because their business model, centered around distribution, is obsolete. However, that doesn't mean that they can't survive in some form. There's still room for them to act as agents, marketing/branding whatever they can, and making money of merchandizing and general crap.
Also, there can be a business model from the Internet distribution. Being the content host (or even just the tracker site) and providing recommendation engines can still be a feasible business. Whether you charge a nominal fee per transaction, a small subscription fee, or live off ad revenue, there would be a business model there.
Think of it this way, if copyright law was dismantled tomorrow, Apple could still make money off of iTMS. Not having to pay labels, I think they could still have a viable business. You might think people would just find other free sources, but the fact is that customers are willing to pay a little bit of money (at least a little) in order to have a site that's easy to search, has good/uncorrupted content, a good shopping experience, and a decent recommendation engine.
Parent
agreed, 100% (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
i'm sorry, but a free and open network where any media can be transmitted effortlessly and without interception is not a business opportunity. its a replacement for an industry based on distribution. people keep talking about the fact that the music industry could have gotten in front of changing technology and used it to their advantage, rather than change taking place without them while they sat in denial. i have the contrary opinion: i think the music industry would never have been able to get in front of this steamroller ...
This is the wrong kind of thinking, and the exact same kind of thinking which lead to the lawsuits and attempts to stamp down on digital distribution.
You are wrong because of the success of iTunes. That, in and of itself, shows that online distribution can be, in and of itself, a viable business model.
You are wrong because of the necessity of value-added services that big labels currently do provide. Marketing, for example, is still necessary to gain recognition. Instead of labels taking all of the profits
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But distribution isn't all the "music industry" does. From my perspective, that's a relatively small piece of the puzzle.
Someone still needs to scout talent; just because you can pound
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone still needs to scout talent; just because you can pound out off-key versions of your classic rock favorites, that doesn't necessarily mean anyone else wants to listen to it.
What, without record companies to help us along we'd have to sift through every dross song released to find something good? Lots of new bands are being "discovered" by record companies now because of online communities that supported them, and found them, previous to their "discovery". Artic Monkeys is one such example. Wit
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Richard Stallman on the word "content" (Score:2)
Those who use this term are often the publishers that push for increased copyright power in the name of the aut
Free Market Economy (Score:5, Insightful)
Plain and simple, if you aren't supplying a product that people want
Content value = zero (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem as the article points out, is there too much, too low quality and too easily sampled content out there. In this glut we have Darwin Reedy (of Americ
Re: (Score:2)
which has ALWAYS been the case. Guess what as a "artist" you are not special, tons of other people can do what you do. I listen to small bands thatbarely have $2.
Nobody is out there reporting (Score:2)
The music industry doesn't really matter, but the decline of newspaper reporting is important to society. There are too few reporters out there digging. Bloggers don't help; they're mostly mouthing off, not out gathering unpublished information.
Call your local newspaper and ask them how many full time reporters they have on the street. If they have ten, you're very lucky. There are very few newspapers left with big reporting staffs, and it shows.
News is what someone doesn't want published. All else
Barrier to entry... (Score:3, Insightful)
As I said in another message: the question isn't whether bloggers will have to do the work reporters, the question is will they be allowed to?
When you shoot yourself in the foot you lose value (Score:3, Informative)
For those that don't know, The studios (content owners) take almost all of the admission revenue and the theaters (content packaging) make their money on concession and other sales. In an effort to squeeze every last cent they can out of the goer (customer) they've lost many customers. To try to subsidize revenue, 'lost' from customers they drove away, they squeeze some more, driving even more away (snowball). How many mega-plexes have you seen closed down. Many drive-ins still offer a good experience for a reasonable price.
When a customer no longer finds going to the theater worth the cost/hassle, they might wait till it is released on DVD. If they still remember they wanted to see a particular movie they buy the DVD, pop it in their player and are blasted with an advertisement telling them not to steal the DVD they just paid for. They then have to wait through another notices about not copying the movie before waiting through the same notice in another language.
Do the studios actually believe that bombarding someone, who already paid, with irritating threats and warnings is going to increase the odds they will spend hard earned money the next time they want to see a movie?
Now it's the next time and wouldbe customer has to decide it they want to
1. Spend more money, which is harder to come by, to be inundated with advertisements and other baggage, just to have a less enjoyable experience seeing the movie. OR
2. Download it where they won't have all the other bothers. They may think it's wrong, but it doesn't matter as much to them because the perceived victim (the studio) was trying to take advantage of them and the the RIAA is mean/greedy the way they aggressively go after poor college students
The more the content provider does to irritate the customer, the more the customer will cease to be a customer.
I used to be one of the movie business' biggest customers. Now I go hiking, and the Internet gets the blame.
Re: (Score:2)
I want to add that I have a SERIOUS problem with this topic's title. NOBODY owns "content", EVERYBODY owns it. I have a legal monopoly on sale and distribution of my content, but I DO NOT OWN IT.
Maybe in other countries one can own "intellectual property" but Article II section 8 of the US Constitution is clear enough on this point that you don't have to be a lawyer to understand it. You can own a painting, but you can't own the image on