This may come as a surprise, but I have a lot of sympathy with artists' rights groups and even entertainment companies that mistrust giants like Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG).
Now, it's not that I hate Amazon or Google, but I do understand that they are fast becoming the intermediary between creators and audiences (and vice-versa), and that this poses a danger to everyone involved in the creative industries.
That danger is that a couple of corporate giants will end up with a buyer's market for creative works, control over the dominant distribution channel, and the ability to dictate the terms on which creative works are made, distributed, appreciated, bought, and sold.
And the danger of that is that these corporate giants might, through malice or negligence, end up screwing up the means by which the world talks to itself, carrying on its cultural discourse -- a discourse that ultimately sets the agendas for law, politics, health, climate, justice, crime, education, child-rearing, and every other important human subject.
So read on, for a detailed outline of this problem and my proposed solutions.
Awesome report from you!!!Every single word that you mention here makes sense and rings a bell.The Problem is that consolidation of Industries is inevitable given the nature of our Capitalism.Eventually Companies get so big and uncompetitive that they get broken up (or outsmarted by upstarts) and we start all over again.
even in the recording industry,there are plenty of major artistes who now ,no longer work with any of the major studios.Instead they let fans download some of their tracks from their website for free and then hope that they like the music enough to buy the whole album.This is the way we are going today.Whether we like it or not its gonna happen.
I really loved your take on Google and Authors Guild and especially this quote
"Today's representatives of the most profitable collections of copyright are simultaneously poor guardians of their own future and poor stewards of their own present. They are so accustomed to a market dominated by a few grumpy giants that they prefer that broken status quo to a future characterized by a shifting landscape of constant innovation, even though the latter would be a better deal for them."
If there becomes something similar to the Oscars or Golden Globe Awards for blogs, this one although is a 'Big Report' should be nominated! If not sweep! Wow!! Bravo!!!
As an example of what you're referring to, when the movie "Titanic" hit the theaters, I refused to go see it. Everything I'd heard about it said it was nothing more than the ultimate "chick flick" - sappy, over the top - a soap opera in movie format. Some time later, it was released to the home market on VHS. Again, I refused, not even bothering to rent it.
A few months later, while recovering from surgery, in a fit of desparation brought on by boredom, I downloaded a crappy cap of the movie, and watched it. A few days later, I owned the collectors box set on VHS.
Then, it became available on laser disk, in a collectors box set, of course. I ended up with this version too.
My mother came to visit, and since she'd never seen the movie, I put it on for her while I completed other tasks. Before she returned to her home, I'd purchased a VHS collector's edition copy for her.
Some time later, I found the movie in a DVD sale bin, and bought two copies, one for me, one for my mother.
From that one pirated, crappy copy found on the internet, the studio ended up selling five legit copies.
The same has happened several times over the years. Download sampling of new works from music artists has resulted in quite a few CD sales, as well.
The flip side, and the part I'm sure really annoys the folks of the golden parachute crowd, is the fact that being able to download movies and songs as a preview has also saved me a small fortune in purchases I'd otherwise have made, only to discover the content was complete crap, or worse.
I seem to recall King George (all four of them) not understanding (or allowing) much beyond outright revolution and overthrow... Hopefully we have evolved a little since then, but taking the macro view, it looks like not.
RE: The shortsightedness of these agencies was caused by greed. And now that someone else has found a way to use their laws against them, causes me no grief and affects my life not at all. And if Google and Amazon become a hindrance I am free to choose another provider.
I think the larger point Cory is making is that Google and Amazon are positioning themselves to dominate these fields and there will be no other providers (at least none able to get market share) because the RIAA and Author's Guild folks are striking poor deals.
Sure, Google and Amazon will eventually fall no matter how smart they are today, but they may be able to stifle a lot of innovation along the way.
The idea that systemic change only happens by taking up arms is utterly false. There is all kind of change in the world and most of it happens without armed violence - but the books only get written about violent change so history is replete with examples of it.
Art and culture have changed many systems - which is one reason why they are so valuable and tools like copyright should be preserved for the common good.
There is another point as well - one that responds better to this criticism: copyright is not supposed to be a tool solely for creators. The intellecctual property ideas of the U.S. founding fathers were a bargain between society and content creators to the common good of both.
Thus, we should not be allowing these giants the power to keep choosing to do what is no one's best interest (which they apparently get by dominating both content producers and buyers). Bringing copyright back into line with its historic purpose would lessen the powers of the giants.
Copyright should be reformed regardless of whether everyone wakes up tomorrow and is convinced by Cory's arguments. Accomplishing this would give King George less of a choice but everyone else better options.
In business many have tried to control creativity. Advertising conglomerates, record companies, ...
Although for a while, Sony, Ogilvy and & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi seemed to dominate...they all met their fall, or ended up losing money, or became another star in the universe.
The good news is creativity is slippery. You can buy up the existing media, but tastes change...styles change. What's hot one day can be cold as ice the next.
Companies are always wanting to template ideas. They will take something brilliant and say they want to automate it, or format it.
I think of all these "Build Your Own" web sites with canned background images. At first you think -- hey, everyone can do it. But creativity means -- well, being Creative! Creating...not Copying! And so, peoples eyes glaze over at the site of yet another blog looking like every blog on Wordpress, Facebook or Blogger.
And so...I have hope...that at least in this part of business, there is always room for the individual...the doer...the breakthrough...
Unfortunely, one of the biggest detrations of capitalism is the unfair balance of the haves and have nots. Anti-trust legislation many times fails to go far enough to truly impact the industry's bullies.
This is a recurring theme, seen in the steel industry, the railroad industry, banking industry, telco industry and automobile industry.
Somehow the arts do not get the same respect when it comes to anti-trust matters. The price of admission is devastating to individuals and smaller players, with little or no recourse.
Trying to level the playing field will be a monumental task. But like the US auto industry, enough greed and mismangement could bring these industry bigs down also.
I like your specific points about the issue being broader than control, it truly is the ability to support and reward innovation and true creativity, rather than turning the issue into a control of supply and distribution, with middleman control.
Truly, if we lose the incentive to create and grow words, music, movies, ideas, etc., we will enjoy a very shallow selection of high quantity low quality choices.
As someone who has worked nearly all sides of the media world (author, agent, subsidiary rights and sales at book publishers, MTV and Showtime, web publishers, intellectual property consulting), I heartily and wholeheartedly agree with Cory's take on every issue.
And yet...ReadWriteWeb just today referred to a massive new report that studied the creation and consumption of books, music and movies since 2000. The focus was to address the seldom-challenged assumption that piracy hurts the creative industries. The authors (economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Harvard) and Koleman Strumpf (University of Kansas)) discovered that production of new books, music, video, movies has increased dramatically -- many-fold, since 2000. Here's the pdf: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-132.pdf
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