Why Make a Sequel of the Napster Wars?

6 writes "Cory Doctorow has an interesting article over at Information Week about Hollywood's strategy of suing sites such as YouTube. Says Doctorow: 'It's been eight years since Sean Fanning created Napster in his college dorm room. Eight years later, there isn't a single authorized music service that can compete with the original Napster. Record sales are down every year, and digital music sales aren't filling in the crater. The record industry has contracted to four companies, and it may soon be three if EMI can get regulatory permission to put itself on the block. The sue-'em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out plan was a flop in the box office, a flop in home video, and a flop overseas. So why is Hollywood shooting a remake?'"

Well

[spiritraveller]

So why is Hollywood shooting a remake?

Unlike the Napster case, Youtube has revenue sources (and Google can invest the additional funds needed to keep it afloat).

The studios, quite rightfully see a source of revenue there. It's not just a bunch of cheap bastards sharing amongst themselves. It's a multibillion dollar company making money off of THEIR content.

Should copyright just be abolished because we want free access to tv shows and movie clips?

Re:Napster, WTF? Hotline Servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it began on BBS's.

Curious

[David Hume]

Assume that the major movie studios produced high-quality full-length first run downloadable movies with no DRM whatsoever at a reasonable prices. (You define what is reasonable.) Any DRM-less format you prefer.

How many of you would "share" then with your friends? (By "share" I don't mean watch the movies with friends. I mean make copies of the movies for friends.) If so, how many friends?

Would you see anything wrong with posting your copy to an FTP site or the equivalent?

Would you see anything wrong sending copies to your closest 100 friends?

Just curious.

Collapse

[Anonymous Coward]

Shutting down Napster was a huge blunder for the record companies, leading to the collapse of the entire industry.

Not to defend the record companies, which are relics destined for obsolescence, but I suspect that not shutting down Napster would have led to the industry's collapse as well.

Cory: It's called money

[samuel4242]

Now Napster was great for you, me, and all of other hepcats, but it kind of sucked for the artists and the recording companies. And yes, I know that the recording companies rip off the artists. But if Napster rips off the recording companies, then the artists are guaranteed to get nothing.

I personally like iTunes and the iTunes store. I don't mind the DRM and I re-rip the few songs I need to move. It's a pain, yes, but I think the price is fair. So I think iTunes is infinitely times better than napster because at least some money is headed in the right direction. Even if only 5% makes it through to the artists, thats an infinitely greater amount than Napster ever paid them.

Sheesh. I owe so much to the artists who've written songs that have gotten me through some tough times. 99 cents is nothing compared to the gifts they've given.

Why a Sequel?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the reasons (and I'm sure not the only one), is that there is no more Hollywood any more. Instead, there are huge corporate entities that also happen to own entertainment companies, like GE owning CBS, or Time/Warner/AOL.

Policy about intellectual property is the responsibility of corporate lawyers, and they have a very primitive world view. They assume that all ownership is like physical ownership. If you own a theater, someone pays you to sit in the seat. If you sell songs, you sell the physical media. They don't understand that this model is no longer valid, and they don't have the flexibility to change.

This is why Apple has succeeded with iTunes. Apple understands the new online world, and they have figured out how to make money. It's not surprising that a tech company would be able to succeed, and old line traditional companies would fail.

Another side of the lawyer mentality is that you can only win by suing people. For some people in the law, not suing is like not breathing. (Insert shark joke here.) They see that their business model is going down the tubes. (Insert 'series of tubes' joke here.) Their first and only reaction is to sue. Why are you surprised by this? They are doing what they were trained to do, and what they are very well paid to do.

Re:Well

[jc42]

Should copyright just be abolished because we want free access to tv shows and movie clips?

Nah; the copyright system should be abolished because it leads to our current mess in which a few giant companies use it to deprive the artists of their rightful income. We should toss such copyright laws, and devise a revised scheme that guarantees that the artists get most of the money.

Or we can continue along the path of zillions of skirmishes that hurt everyone, until it settles down to a new system. And hope that that new system can't find a new way to steal most of the artists' income and give it to a few fat cats who have a stranglehold on the distribution channels.

Re:Well

[QuantumG]

Should copyright just be abolished because we want free access to tv shows and movie clips?

on tv shows and movie clips, sure.

If the majority of people don't respect a law (and they don't) then that law is unjust.

Re:Cory: It's called money

[kebes]

Now Napster was great for you, me, and all of other hepcats, but it kind of sucked for the artists and the recording companies.

But Cory's point was that Napster could have been transitioned into a wildly successful business, bringing cash to the recording companies. According to him:

Napster's plan was plausible. They had the fastest-adopted technology in the history of the world, garnering 52,000,000 users in 18 months -- more than had voted for either candidate in the preceding U.S. presidential election! -- and discovering, via surveys, that a sizable portion would happily pay between $10 and $15 a month for the service. What's more, Napster's architecture included a gatekeeper that could be used to lock out nonpaying users.

So if Napster had kept its tens-of-millions of users, and 50% of them were truly willing to pay $10/month, then that's billions of dollars a year that could have been pulled in. If that's not enough to support record companies and artists, then there is something seriously messed up with their businesses. The point is that users were willing to pay for the convenience of Napster: easy access to a massive catalog. The subscription model was also appealing to alot of people: you don't have to worry about how much you're downloading. There's a limit to how much music a person can listen to... so alot of people will actually end up spending more money on an $10/month subscription that they do on buying CDs. They will do so happily if the service suits their needs.

Cory believes there was a huge missed opportunity for the industry to re-invent itself, and make money in a new age.

The success of iTunes drives this point home: everyone knows you can get free copies of music from various websites. However people are willing to pay iTune prices for the convenience. The labels are still caught up in an old business model ("each copy a person listens to must be a trackable sale we have made") rather than accepting a new business model ("charge people a monthly fee for access to an exhaustive catalog").

Re:Well

[Abcd1234]

the copyright system should be abolished because it leads to our current mess in which a few giant companies use it to deprive the artists of their rightful income.

Yes... because that is the fault of copyright law, and not the artists, who sign over the rights to their works for a pittance.

TFA is *not* about piracy vs. legal access

[gold23]

There seem to be a lot of people bitching about IP and copyrights, and "well of course the Napster kicked their butts -- it was free!"

But what Doctorow is saying is that both Napster then and YouTube now *want* to do deals with the copyright holders, but they only see a revenue stream coming from lawsuits (especially given Google's deep pockets). He points out that both the recording industry and cable television started out by poaching someone else's IP (sheet music and already-broadcast material, respectively), then doing a deal with the copyright holders after they were able to make money doing it.

Please, read the fine ar... oh, right.

Re:Curious

[Bill Currie]

Without copyright, there would be no need for the GPL.

Re:Napster, WTF? Hotline Servers

[IvyKing]

I'd actually began to mention BBSs and then erased it, because I figured if I start down that road, people are going to say, "Actually, it started with people copying each others punch cards."

Home taping was the first worry of the media companies, I remember reading an article in 1970-71 Hi-Fi mag aout the ethics of taping records (tape recorders had been available since the 1950's). Similarly, one of the reasons why Ampex never got serious about a home video tape recorder was that they knew they were going to be sued by the media companies (Betamax decision...) - they figured that the Japanese with their assets offshore would make a much harder target for the media companies.

pickup basketball with old guys

[BewireNomali]

Ever play pickup basketball with old guys? I'm a run and gun type player myself - and the old timers neutralize all that with the ground and pound. They back up the whole way down the court at two meters an hour, talking shit the whole way while swatting at you when you try to steal the ball. You get overzealous, he threads a backdoor pass from the three point line to the basket for an easy layup. It you tap the ball away he cries foul and complains that the young guys are beating up on the warhorses. Or he'll pump fake you like 14 times until you give up and he banks in the shot. old guys ALWAYS use the glass.

the lawsuits are that old guy - taking a speedy process and slowing it down to their pace in order to give them time to catch up. they call fouls all the time and make the whole process generally unpleasant at times. But they are doing what they need to do to WIN.

pointing out that the lawsuit strategy failed is assuming that it was to attempt to deter change - it's not. Big companies are about slowing down the process and milking every dime they can out of it. Innovating is an interesting thing. For every innovator who succeeds, countless others fail for reasons other than technical viability. The smart thing to for large moneyed firms to do is to wait - let the innovators do their thing; when the market reacts in kind - bully into the market with dollars and positioning. It's the lion chasing off the hyenas after they've made the kill. The king of the jungle feeds off carrion something like 30% of the time.

I'm certain I'll get modded down for this, but the future of this business is not in selling music. What the internet has taught us is that content is devalued by an inability to secure exclusivity of access. The future of media is not ITUNES - that's another example of slowing down change. It is not change itself. It is still selling music. the paradigm shift is that they are not going to sell MUSIC at all.

Re:Curious

[arkhan_jg]

The movie business has done an excellent business of killing the cinema experience. The studios take such a big cut of the ticket sales (90% for the first week I believe is usual) that cinemas struggle to make money even with every seat filled with big blockbusters. They make their money largely from the concessions stand, which is why it's so damn expensive and they try to stop you bringing your own in.
Then add in the random patrols of staff with night-vision gear looking for cameras, the sticky mess on the floors because they can't afford the time to clean the screenroom between showings properly, and of course the completely uncivilised assholes that actually go to cinemas - teenagers chatting throughout, mobile phones, the rustle of sweet bags the entire film, the little SOB that kept kicking my seat throughout the last film despite his mum's best attempts to stop him...

Frankly, if I can watch it on my own sofa on my own TV snuggled up with my other half, it's a damn sight better. For that big movie experience, I've got access to a digital projector which fills my whole wall. We can pause when we want, we can eat what we want - and with cheap DVD rental and an upscaler, it looks pretty decent too.

Want to save the cinema going experience? The studios need to be less greedy. The cinemas can't raise prices any more, they're already approaching eye-watering levels. Take a smaller cut, let the cinemas provide a better experience for less money, and you might reverse the decline in cinema audiences.

Re:Curious

[Antique Geekmeister]

What?

Without copyright, the GPL wouldn't be necessary.

Re:No one can compete with FREE??

[cronius]

I know you're kidding, but just a quick comment on that: Bottled water. Don't know how the water quality in the states are, but in Norway we have very high quality on the water that comes out of the tap. Personally I can't tell the difference between tap-water and bottled water if they're the same temperature. When Norwegian companies started selling bottled water, they we're laughed at. "There's no way you can compete with something that's free, that's just ridiculous." Today it's a strong business.

As for the movie/music industry: Service. Download all you want from itunes without DRM for $10 a month? Hell yes. There's no way TPB could compete with THAT, because the service you receive is so much better it would be well worth the price. A service is something people are willing to pay for, even though that same service could be received for free (by e.g. washing your own car etc).