Doctorow on the Demise of the Digital Hub 312
natpoor writes "Cory Doctorow writes an excellent piece in this week's TidBITS about how Hollywood is out to destroy the digital hub and what it means for citizens and open source. "In Hollywood's paranoid fantasy, digital television plus Internet equals total and immediate 'Napsterization' of every movie shown on TV." Slashdotters will know some of it, but this is the best write-up I've seen, and it is well-linked. Far more important than AOL on OSX!"
film at 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
But the thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:film at 11 (Score:1, Insightful)
It's Pretty Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that people can already do that, their vaporware is no longer profitable.
Is it relevant? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whether 'Hollywood' is ready for it or not.
Reminds me of the dialogue between the American and Viet Namese General. The American turned to the Viet Namese and said, "You know, you never beat us on an open field of battle."
The Viet Namese General replied, "That is true. It is also irrelevant."
It seems like 'Hollywood' will win in court, but what that means, I don't know.
Re:Yeah I can see that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maran
Taoist saying (Score:5, Insightful)
This holds true for governments as well as corporations.
It's only a matter of time.
Greed (Score:3, Insightful)
"Far more important than AOL on OSX?" (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Taoist saying (Score:5, Insightful)
When they become oppressive, it makes it a lot easier to mobilize a movement against them. More oppression means more people realizing that the said government or corporation really needs an ass whooping. (not as elegant as the taoist saying, but most things hardly are).
Re:Monopolistic Industries (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like how it's being given to you, DON'T BUY IT. People survived for thousands of years without digital television, the Internet, and everything else. If they make it illegal for me to buy anything that isn't Holly-wood approved, I just won't buy any of it. End of story.
Digital TV? I don't even get cable. Waste of money. Too many channels, with too much crap, making the stuff I might want not worth the effort. Learn to live without it, or please don't take some mythical high ground. You're so greedy, even if this stuff goes through you'll still shell out for whatever media product you've just _got_ to have, and let the people you supposedly hate walk all over you and rob you blind. No sympathy.
Apple and Open Source. (Score:5, Insightful)
*poof*, we have a lobby! Declan what's-his-face was wrong, there are plenty of people directly affected by this who aren't coders, aren't geeks.
Someone wrote about creating a library of canonical "this is why the DMCA-etc is bad" examples, so that Joe Average can understand the issue. That's exactly what this columnist is doing---reaching out to the average Mac user and explaining that usage restrictions are evil.
Mmm, I've got a warm fuzzy now.
--grendel drago
Steve Job against MPAA ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, Steve Job is also Chairman & CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, which has an exclusive Feature Film Agreement and Co-Production Agreement with Disney for at least its next three motion pictures. And Disney is a major member of the MPAA. So
Re:With due respect to /.ed TidBITS... (Score:5, Insightful)
WAKE UP! This whole 'Battle' can be summed up as follows: The AAAA wants you to Subscribe to everything. TV, Radio, MP3, CDs, Software, Books,(add anything else you can think of) and own ALL avenues of content creation/distribution. This will give ol' Hillary and Jack the stranglehold they crave.
Fair use? Gone. Independent distribution? Gone. Any scenario where YOU control 'content'? GONE.
Senators are being paid off left and right (pun intended), the only way to fight this is to educate people who vote. Vote their asses out of office!
Call or write your Senators and Represenatives and let them know where you stand, and where they will be standing if this trend continues. Stop being the bitch of the AAAA!
Re:Monopolistic Industries (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this where I say, "You clearly didn't read the article"?
Let's say I do as you suggest. I quit going to movies, I cancel my cable subscription, I quit renting movies. Does this protect me from the bad legislation? How does that ensure that I will be able to do as I please with my own content?
Igor
Re:Is it relevant? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, the VC also did everything they could, including massacres of their own, and getting otherwise innocent (AFAIK) third-party countries involved as supply conduits and staging areas (nice tactic; the American left protested as an escalation any pursuit of VC outside South Vietnam) -- guerilla warfare is never pretty.
You do get it, and so does Hollywood (Score:4, Insightful)
The "perfect copy" argument is only a way of trying to win the same battle that they *already lost* in the 80's in the Betamax case. They know that this precident will shoot down any attempts to legislate anti-copying measures of analog recordings, but they're trying again with digital files on this perfect copy BS. They never mention that most illegal MP3s probably sound about the same whether ripped from CD or input from cassette, because that would lessen their case for a need for new laws. Wow, can you imaging the space required for a "perfect copy" of a digitally-broadcast movie?
The arguments being put forward by Hollywood for this legislation are hogwash, they know it and so do we. However, they sound a lot better to their argument than "we need new laws because technology is making it too easy for consumers to avoid our attempts at controlling what they see and hear."
Gone are the days... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the past these information sellers were protected by three things: the expense of producing a copy of their information, the fact that the information was not easily transferrable from one media to another, and by (to use a term from Star Trek) replicative fading (A copy is never as good as the master). Sure, people could photocopy books, but that is more expensive than buying the book in the first place. Sure, people can plug the output of their turntable into the input of their tape deck and record songs off of an LP, but the quality will drop. And if you copy that copy, the quality drops even more.
Enter the digital age. The media is unimportant. Audio, video, software, text are all just bits of information. They can be burned onto a CD. They can be sent over the internet. They can even be written to floppy disks. It no longer expensive to copy something. There is no longer any degradation. A seventeenth generation copy is as crisp and clear as the master. The three pillars holding up this scam are gone.
The software industry has tried various things to stem the flood. Activation codes, dongles, special floppy formats, read only distribution media. All have failed, and for the most part software companies have given up trying to copy protect stuff. They have decided to sell their software for a fair price, trusting that enough people will be honest and buy their product rather than obtaining a copy from somewhere else. Open source software vendors have realized that the write once sell many model is dead. They don't sell the software. They sell ready to use installation media. They sell professionally printed manuals. They sell help desk service and support. In short, they sell convenience.
The entertainment industry is slowly realizing that their create once, sell many business model is mortally wounded. They are trying to keep it alive with the DMCA, with various broadcast bits, etc. They will try with encryption, and other copy-proofing systems. They are even trying to control everything digital. Eventually, they will realize that it is too expensive, and too much of a hassle. People will crack any technology they try to implement. They need to reach the same solution that the software vendors reached: Either they sell the entertainment at its true market value, or they will go under. Either sell convenience, or sell nothing. The cash cow is dead.
Re:film at 11 (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll tell you what I'm going to do - stop watching TV. It's just a bunch of useless garbage anyway. Get out of the house and do something elightening!
Yes, we would have been much better off with (Score:2, Insightful)
Talk about industry-friendly cronies being put into all sorts of places...
Re:Maybe I don't just get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Starting next week I will be looking for "Napsterized" copies of Enterprise because we lost UPN in our area. Now if the networks offered programming on demand through cable and satellite where I could just go to UPN, CBS, FOX, etc and select the show I want to watch when I want to watch it I would pay for that service. It beats waiting for hours to get a full copy (that works) off Kazaa or IRC.
You'll still have some piracy. You always will. But I think there are a lot of people like me who download programming because it is more convenient than the current alternatives.
Evidently it is just more economical for the entertainment industry to pay politicians for some bills than it is to adapt their business models to work with the new technologies and mindsets of the people. Our choice is a simple one. We can either fight the industry by telling them we don't like their strategy and we will refuse to consume what they have to offer. Or we can fight the policians by not electing those who support these industries over the people. Unfortunatly in the last case, the average voter probably doesn't understand what is going on here or it just isn't that important to them.
Industry sees the product, not the industry (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember seeing some time ago the text of a graduation address made by Guy Kawasaki that (in part) addressed this very issue. (Karma whore solicitation: go find this speech -- I'm feeling too lazy at the moment to hit Google myself.)
In his speech, he analyzed the home refrigeration industry, going back to ice harvesting for ice boxes. Some bright person invented ice makers, but instead of adopting ice makers, the ice harvesters struggled to compete with the manufacturers of ice makers. Down they went. Then someone invented the refrigerator, and the same thing happened to the ice maker manufacturers. They saw themselves as purveyors of ice, not of food preservation systems.
And that's what we've got today with the entertainment industry. The MPAA/RIAA are so fixated on selling CDs and DVDs and movie tickets that they've completely lost sight of the fact that what they're selling is entertainment (if you can call it that), not the distribution media.
Re:What do you use your computer for anyway? (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps even a greater use I want is to be free. Free as I am free to hotrod my car, free as I am to cut up my jeans, free as I am to die of alcohol abuse, just free to do my own thing when I am not hurting other people. Or would all that be illegal as well?
I disagree... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is not a scam to write once, charge many times. Just like any product, the buyer and seller have to agree upon a reasonable prifce for the product. It is up to the buyer to estimate the value. The actual cost of developing said product is irrelevant. When selling goods, you charge so that you not only make up for the production of the goods, but also for the development thereof.
If you are a doctor, you charge your patients not only for the costs associated with having a clinic, but also for the costs of acquiring a M.D. degree. No different if you manufacture cars, music, software or knowledge.
How to explain why this is bad to your parents: (Score:5, Insightful)
Mom: "I don't understand why this is bad. Copying this stuff is bad, right?"
Me: "OK. What they want to do is lock this into a specific player."
Mom: "Okay..."
Me: "So, you have all your Abba and Barry Manilow CDs that you listen to while driving in the car."
Mom: "Okay...."
Me: "They want to make it so that when you sell the car, you have to buy all new CDs."
Mom understood it right away.
We need to make it SIMPLE for people to understand. The phrase, "If this happens, you'll need to buy a copy of everything for every player you own, ever" explains it.
Re:Digital video enthusiasts? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't be fooled by all this "pirate" stuff, none of this stuff is going to do the tiniest bit to change piracy. Real pirates in Asia who are making money on duplicated disks do not care about encryption (they copy the entire disk), can steal or threaten or bribe to get any piece of technology they need, and certainly don't care about DMCA type laws (they are breaking far more serious ones).
The MPAA/RIAA are well aware that they are not going to have one iota of change on how much piracy is happening. And they are not stupid, they would not waste the time, money, and effort, and bad publicity, of these schemes if it were not for a higher goal.
That goal is to make all possible competitors illegal by making any kind of recording device where the data can be removed or played back on any device other than the original recorder illegal.
Re:Monopolistic Industries (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with the general statement, but the comment is somewhat trollish. Here are a couple of important corollaries:
1) The failure of DAT is almost directly tied to the copy protection that was built-in to the format (at the consumer level). The people won, kind-of, and you can bet the industry paid close attention.
2) The lesson the industry learned was "people won't knowingly buy copy protected items". This resulted in great efforts to keep consumers in the dark. How many people knew the DVD was content-controlled up the ying-yang? How many people know those new VCR's they are making have copy protection in them. The manufacturers do not tell you they do, the people selling the products don't tell you, the only way to find out is when it fails to do something you expected.
3) Another lesson learned from the great DAT failure, was that people would use other options in preference to the crippled format. People use a MP3 or a computer CDR instead of DAT or CDR-Audio, because it works better and is not hobbled by features they don't like. This is why the RIAA and MPAA are so hot on getting congress to mandate content control for everything! To eliminate consumer choice.
4) New items are very flexible, think of TIVO for a moment. I liked the way it worked when I bought it, but what happens if they configure it in a way that I don't like tomorrow. At best I could stop the service, unless I had already done the "lifetime" service.
In summary, not buying can work. But it does not solve all problems. Don't forget we have active, rich, and politically-connected monopolies doing everything they can to ensure it that consumer preference won't be taken into account!
How are you going to solve problems 2-4? Even if you are willing to boycott all forms of media (I can respect that), it does not help the damage to society. The public domain is shrinking, the future won't be able to read our DRM protected content, and we have powerful people trying to control information dissemination in our society. This needs more action than a boycott (although a really good boycott might help).
Not Fear of COPYING. Fear of CONTROL (Score:3, Insightful)
Piracy is being used as a smoke-screen. For starters, since day one the **AA has complained that Napster/MP3/DivX/etc. are new and horrible type of piracy because they make perfect copies that are indistinguishable from originals.
Except they're not. MP3 and DivX are lossless, lo-fidelity media. The quality of the copies is closer to cassette tapes than CDs, and the videos are only marginally if not worse than the VHS tapes you can buy from some street vender. Nevertheless they continue to use this argument. The media companies don't like piracy, but they've adjusted their business plan to account for it.
The reason they continue to argue against piracy is to deflect the argument away from the real issue. What they are afraid of and what they are fighting so hard to prevent is not that the people who will make unauthorized copies of content that they own. But that people will be making content that the media companies DON'T own.
And that is what is so insiduous about the legislation being considered and passed. And that is why the public is being lied to by the media companies, using congress as their mouthpiece. And when the public does find out that they've been bamboozled, the fall-guys will be the congressmen while the Valenti and Rosen, who are accountable to nobody, walk off with the whole world in their pockets.