Europe Wants A Single Market For Online Content... But Why?
from the details,-details... dept
The European Commission apparently thinks that the big thing holding back the rise of a European online content industry is the lack of a single centralized marketplace for digital content that also includes DRM and other anti-piracy safeguards. It's not surprising why they might think this, but they're wrong. It's a politician's solution, rather than a business person's. It's based on the false belief that copyright is a tug-o-war between content creators and consumers that needs balance on either side. That's simply not true. Saying that it is sets up the economics of a zero-sum game where every winner has a loser. However, that's not true with digital content, with its infinite availability, every winner doesn't need to be a loser. You can set up business models that expand a market, rather than limit it. And, of course, the worst way to try to set up such market is to centralize it and make it the government's job. It has all the hallmarks of a totally boondoggle of wasted government money and effort. Instead, why not let various other business models get tested in the marketplace to see what works?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: europe, marketplace, online content
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It's the wrong solution and will cause more problems in the long-term but at least it's possible to see where they're coming from.
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They refuse to let people in the UK buy from the Apple website in other EU countries like France and Germany.
It's only the fact that the price differential in this case is so obvious that motivated Which? Magazine to take them to court.
This Apple settlement really has little to do with digital content laws, just with the fact that apple are spending significant effort in stopping UK consumers from doing business with their stores elsewhere in the EU, illegally.
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Re:
Concerning the difference of prices between the UK store and the rest of the European stores, there has been an announcement recently from Apple, indicating they were discussing with the majors to solve this problem. Now, between what has been announced and the reality, there is always a difference...
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The US actually has a better solution (for once!)
In the US, to get around Apple's DRM/vertical business model, most of the music industry has simply dropped DRM and is selling their music in MP3 format on Amazon. Those files can be played on any MP3 player including the iPod. Problem solved.
God, I'm glad in this one instance that I don't live in Europe. I'd much rather be stuck with no DRM than one DRM.
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techdirt wrong again (no suprise)
Imagine we had seperate markets for each state and seperate regulations and price controls, and people with credit cards in one state couldn't purchse things from web sites in another state etc.
Clearly European consumers would benefit from a single market jsut as we do in the US - think of a united Europe.
You use the word "centralized" to give a prejudiced view, but in fact this word has nothing to do with the reality.
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It's about coordination
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