If The Government Needs To Step In To Help Your Business Model, You Shouldn't Be In Business
from the simple-statement dept
We recently wrote about a bunch of super successful UK musicians complaining that the UK government needed to force ISPs and startups to make their old business model viable again. We, quite naturally, thought that was a pretty crazy suggestion. In reaction to this post on Twitter, reader botaday rephrased Tim's closing line in a way that so perfectly summed up a key sentiment that many of us had for years in dealing with the copyright fight, that it was worth repeating here:If the government needs to "step in" to help your business model, maybe you shouldn't be in business.Just keep repeating this. Because it's the crux of so many of the fights that we keep seeing all the time. It's the history of protectionism and mercantilism. It's the basis of regulatory capture and anti-competitive laws. And it's always couched in phrases to try to hide the fact that it's about having the government prop up a business model, by trying to make it a "moral" issue. But it's not a moral issue when your business model fails. So, every time you see one of these fights going on, repeat that line: If the government needs to "step in" to help your business model, maybe you shouldn't be in business."
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Filed Under: business models, copyright, regulations
Reader Comments
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Of course you did. Because you (singular) are pirates!!!
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There, it's done. Can we move on to having a productive dialogue now? Thank you.
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Re:
Authors are only motivated to write, runs the conventional belief, if they know their rights will be protected.
Yet a historical comparison, at least, reaches a different conclusion. Publishers in England exploited their monopoly shamelessly. New discoveries were generally published in limited editions of at most 750 copies and sold at a price that often exceeded the weekly salary of an educated worker.
London's most prominent publishers made very good money with this system, some driving around the city in gilt carriages. Their customers were the wealthy and the nobility, and their books regarded as pure luxury goods. In the few libraries that did exist, the valuable volumes were chained to the shelves to protect them from potential thieves.
In Germany during the same period, publishers had plagiarizers -- who could reprint each new publication and sell it cheaply without fear of punishment -- breathing down their necks. Successful publishers were the ones who took a sophisticated approach in reaction to these copycats and devised a form of publication still common today, issuing fancy editions for their wealthy customers and low-priced paperbacks for the masses.
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Another thing
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A business must constantly evolve and keep pace with the changes in the world. If they cannot keep pace, they do not deserve to stay in business.
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You're a dipshit. (Wow, this is fun. You, know I've never really started a productive dialogue this way before. Have you?)
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If you need the law...
since if it so easy to "obtain" without you, what value exactly do you add?
serious question.
laws covering commercial activities I can understand, regulating companies etc, but to try and use the same laws to regulate the public makes little sense and is more or less impossible to enforce. and hence a waste of public resources to try.
the music labels, and artists, well some of them, think they are in the business of selling plastic discs and music downloads - I'm not so sure, if your product is so easy to copy as an mp3 file, or to rip as any other streaming format you are selling the wrong thing. Sell the experience or the convenience.
if the only thing between you and your customers not needing you is the law your business model has a flaw in it and people will, and do, simply cut you out.
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So all of those businesses that make a living off of abusing the copyright laws by using DMCA, which is what the government did when they stepped in the last time... they should get out of business?
Close down Google and YouTube, the party is over.
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Their motives seem to be cradled on the belief that art would somehow stop if they didn't provide their vital cultural services and is thus worth protecting at all costs.
Making the legacy players understand it's not a moral issue seems as likely as them explaining to us that it is a moral issue.
So, where can this conversation possibly move in a productive rational manner?
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I am Botaday
I post an image (Not exactly a webcomic, I prefer Art Humor Blog) a day - for free - and offer prints for sale.
I love the future.
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So, to answer your question. Yes - if youtube can't survive without the DMCA and without constant abuse of copyright laws - it should go out of business.
The great thing about capitalism though..someone else will figure out a way to make money without constant abuse of copyright laws if youtube can't.
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where art thou now Luddite ?
adapt or die
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Everyone should be, and is, whether they know it or not, "in business." I would rephrase this as:
"If the government needs to 'step in' to help your business model, maybe you should be in a different business."
Also, we need to stop using "business" and "capitalism" as synonyms. There is a lot of business these days that is not capitalism, but if you attack it you get attacked back for attacking capitalism.
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Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
When the government sends police officers into the streets after big ball games to keep the peace, you can bet the government is protecting the business model of the NCAA, the NFL, the NBA and the rest of them.
When the government creates Cybercommand to stop, among other things, DDOS on web sites like this one, you can bet the government is protecting TechDirt's business model.
As Elizabeth Warren and President Obama said: you didn't build this web site on your own. Others helped and others continue to help you maintain your business model. (What it is? I can't be sure, but it seems to be to get Big Search to fund your journalism panels and put ads on your site.)
So quit thinking that your manure doesn't stink.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JyvLsutfI5M
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Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
Plus, I don't see piracy endangering lives the same way a riot does, bob.
Is it laziness that keep you from posting these thoughts on your own blog?
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I'm from the government and I'm here to help you
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Re: Another thing
Unless you're a bank...or an automaker, or a steel conglomerate, or a railroad or.... Think of it as Newton's law of bailoutting: Basically if an industry has something to do with moving something, the government shall be th'intertia.
"No industry should ever be forced to act in the protectionist interests of another industry."
Unless you're a...no, no, I can't even think of one.
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If there was no "Safe Harbor" provision, such sites would still have the same protections they have now, without the DMCA takedown strings attached. If someone tried to sue them over hosting infringing content, they could simply state that they operate under Common Carrier law and the whole thing would be thrown out. The complainant would have to go after the users, not the site, which is a lot more expensive.
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Who's abusing copyright and the DMCA??
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If the entertainment industry get their way, ISPs will have to do just that. In fact, it is already happening with these stupid 3 strike laws that are coming into effect all over the place.
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Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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Re: Another thing
It is very true that other industries shouldn't be forced to help prop up other industries... But that doesn't mean that that "if government needs to step [in] to help your business model you shouldn't be in business". There are some very evident business industries that the gov't _should_ be assisting. (and potentially levying taxes on other industries or activities to pay for such assistance.)
1) renewable energies: Solar (thermal/PV/whatever else)
2) geo-thermal
3) fusion
4) wind
... etc.
Because "profit" to a nation or a state can be measured in more ways than just purely instant $. A government ranging from township to federal helping a company in any of the above industries which aren't yet profitable, but will be in the future(and even if they aren't we as a society will need those technologies for self-sufficiently) , and therefore is an investment for the future.
This is kinda a rant, but it feels like it needed saying.
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Trickle down logic
So money saved is reinvested.
But but but.. When consumers save money, it seems to disappear completely from the economy, not spent anywhere else. It doesn't seem to make its way into grocery stores or utility companies or mortgage banks or insurance companies or any other necessity.
I guess there is no such thing as trickle up economics
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Who's "you"?
Ain't me, boy.
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Re: Trickle down logic
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Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
That is, to say that general peacekeeping and public safety =/= specialized, industry-specific protection. Upholding the law =/= stretching the law beyond all reason to support self-interested, protectionist interpretation of a specific industry.
You no make-a no sense. But I do agree with Pres. Obama. Al Gore DID invent the intertubes.
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Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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Yes!
Sony, Time-Warner, Vivendi, Disney, and all the rest should be shut down!
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Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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Re: I'm from the government and I'm here to help you
Is this a federal, state, or local law?
Could you direct me to a site where it is posted, please?
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Re: Re: Another thing
In summary - if you provide something that society can't manage without then yes - the government needs to make sure that your service continues - but that doesn't mean that your company needs to be saved.
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Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
Did you ever find out what castle the princess is in?
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DMCA "stepped in" to help their business models exist.
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Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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In actual fact, the DMCA attempts to inject some common sense into the 'who to sue' decision - it wouldn't need to exist if some people didn't automatically jump for the money-grab rather than targetting the people that are actually at fault.
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Wrong. The DMCA was a wholesale attack against a number of legitimate activities, and would have made them impossible. The safe harbor provision included to try and blunt one of the worst effects of it.
Pretty much everyone who isn't part of the old-school content companies would love to have the DMCA stricken altogether, including safe harbor.
The DMCA did not make the YouTube business model possible. The safe harbor provision is the only thing that kept an existing legal model from being made legally impossible.
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Re: Re: Trickle down logic
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Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
And who cares if piracy isn't as bad as a riot. Most things aren't as dangerous as a riot, but that doesn't mean we stop enforcing those laws.
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Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
But I guess Mike thinks there's something wrong here and we should just let looters run wild.
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http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us /384/270/case.html
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Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
Trademarks were supposed to protect the CONSUMER, not the business model...
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Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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Argh
Wished I'd made that distinction.
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Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
That and I figure that after all your hard work and effort you should get at least one vote of confidence. A bit like C- I guess, deliver a deserved blow but do not crush.
Terror, destruction and mayhem. Seems legit.
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BS. The DMCA is a terrible piece of legislation that has one redeeming feature: the safe harbour provisions that codifies the obvious common sense fact that websites that host user-generated content should not be held liable for user's actions.
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Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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One day you're gonna get this right, bob, today just isn't that day.
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Anyone who puts a song up for sale is putting forth an old business model?
But if they sell a T-shirt that's a hip happening groundbreaking new model?
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Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
No you didn't.
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Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
My God, how do you even tie your own laces?!
They were protecting physical property from damage, which has nothing at all to do with how a shop chooses to do business.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Pure rubbish -- the government protects TechDirt's business model every day!
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What if your "business model" is dependent upon the government refusing to enforce the immigration laws already on the books?
I never understood what was "conservative" about allowing Wall Street's bandit chieftains and cannibal kings to impose destructive and radical social, demographic, and economic changes upon the other 99.9% of the country in the name of a quick buck.
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