Killing The Golden Goose (Again); How The Copyright Stranglehold Dooms Spotify
from the because-of-course dept
For many, many, many years, we've talked about how the legacy entertainment industry will seek to kill the Golden Goose by strangling basically any innovation that is helping it adapt to new innovations. We saw the same pattern over and over and over again. The simple version of it goes like this: the legacy entertainment industry sits around and whines about how awful the internet is because it's undermining its gatekeeper business model that extracts massive monopoly rents, but does nothing to actually adapt. Eventually, companies come along and innovate and create a service (a) people want that (b) actually is legal and pays the legacy companies lots of money. This should be seen as a win-win for everyone.
But the legacy companies get jealous of the success of the innovator who did the actual work. They start to overvalue the content and undervalue the innovative service. The short version of this tends to pop up when a legacy entertainment exec says something like "why is innovative company x making so much money when all it's doing is making use of our content?" Of course, if the service part was so obvious, so easy, and so devoid of value, then the legacy entertainment companies would have done it themselves. But they didn't. So with the jealousy comes the inevitable demand for more cash from the innovator. And, usually, demands for equity too, which the innovator has basically no ability to resist, because they need to have a "good" relationship with the content companies. But the demands for more (and the jealousy) never go away.
The end result, of course, is that tons of innovative businesses that created amazing services that people liked get crushed. Completely. Venture capitalist David Pakman (who founded one of the companies, which I used way back in the day, that was eventually crushed, called MyPlay) detailed how the legacy recording industry used this strategy to bury more than 150 companies over the past two decades. It's the same story over and over again. Any company becomes too successful and the legacy copyright holders squeeze them to death, whining the whole time about how they don't pay enough. As Pakman wrote:
The music industry complains loudly about the “leverage” these giants have over them. First they criticized Apple iTunes for not agreeing to raise prices above $0.99, then they went after Pandora and other webcasters by insisting webcasting rates were too low, then they attacked Spotify for not paying them enough, then they insisted Apple Music pay them more than Spotify did, and now, just as the YouTube licensing agreements are coming up for renewal, they complain YouTube doesn’t pay them as much as Spotify.
But this is a “crisis” of their own making. Many of us argued for years that it was in the industry’s best interest to create a healthy ecosystem of hundreds or thousands of successful companies, all enjoying successful businesses around music. But those arguments fell on deaf ears, and instead the industry fought repeatedly to raise royalty rates over and over again, despite evidence that not a single company ever achieved profitability.
In my mind, it would have been in the best long-term interests of the recorded music business to enable the widespread success of thousands of companies, each paying fair but not bone-crushing royalties back to labels, artists and publishers. But the high royalty rates imposed upon startups, even after clear signs over the past 19 years that the strategy killed companies, has prevented a healthy ecosystem from emerging. It’s a bed the music industry made for itself, and now it is left to lie in it.
Not only does this crush lots of interesting companies, the history of this sort of destruction has served as a giant warning sign to entrepreneurs. Years back we wrote about entrepreneur Tyler Crowley explaining how this kind of history makes entrepreneurs steer clear of doing anything with music. His original post is sadly gone from the internet, but we've still got some quotes that highlight the key points. His argument was that there are different options for entrepreneurs, which he describes as "islands" with different rules and conditions to "dock" at those islands:
For tech folks, from the 35,000' view, there are islands of opportunity. There's Apple Island, Facebook Island, Microsoft Island, among many others and yes there's Music Biz Island. Now, we as tech folks have many friends who have sailed to Apple Island and we know that it's $99/year to doc your boat and if you build anything Apple Island will tax you at 30%. Many of our friends are partying their asses off on Apple Island while making millions (and in some recent cases billions) and that sure sounds like a nice place to build a business.
And what about "Music Biz Island"? Well, the labels have made it clear you don't want to dock there.
Now, we also know of Music Biz Island which is where the natives start firing cannons as you approach, and if not stuck at sea, one must negotiate with the chiefs for 9 months before given permission to dock. Those who do go ashore are slowly eaten alive by the native cannibals. As a result, all the tugboats and lighthouses (investors, advisors) warn to stay far away from Music Biz Island, as nobody has ever gotten off alive. If that wasn't bad enough, while Apple and Facebook Island are built with sea walls to protect from the rising oceans, Music Biz Island is already 5 ft under and the educated locals are fleeing....
That doesn't seem healthy for music. And that brings us around, of course, to Spotify. The music streaming giant has filed to go public, and Ben Thompson over at Stratechery has done a bang up job highlighting why even this hugely "successful" music platform looks like a disaster from a standard internet investment perspective. Its margins suck. Its margins suck so bad it's still unclear if Spotify can ever make money. Because it's the same old story that we described above, where the labels (who own a large chunk of Spotify -- remember the equity demands?) are crushing the company in a way that is unlike basically every other successful internet company. Internet companies are built on the idea of huge margins, because the marginal of one more customer is minimal.
But not with Spotify. Spotify has to give over so much of its revenue to the labels that it's nearly impossible for it to ever be a viable business. Ben points out that the revenue and costs numbers show that Spotify operates like any "well-managed SaaS company." But it has a "marginal cost problem" in that the label deals (even ones that were restructured recently) guarantee that nearly all of the money that Spotify gets... goes right out the door to the labels.
Spotify’s margins are completely at the mercy of the record labels, and even after the rate change, the company is not just unprofitable, its losses are growing, at least in absolute euro terms:
Ben has all this laid out in his usual nice charts and graphs and such that are worth checking out.
But, what this all comes down to, yet again, is the stranglehold of a messed up copyright system. The fact that the labels can kill the golden goose over and over and over again is because of one simple reason: the artificial monopoly handed to them by the copyright system, and the power it bestows. It's a market distortion. This isn't to say that there shouldn't be any copyright (let's see if our usual trolls make it this far in the post or if they've already dashed off a comment about how I want no copyright at all...). But it certainly demonstrates how the copyright system is so weighted to favor the copyright holder that they can strangle basically any business that touches on copyright, and make those markets entirely different from basically any similar business that isn't encumbered with copyrights and legacy businesses who, having failed to adapt themselves, now demand a king's ransom from the companies that did all the adapting for them.
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Filed Under: business models, copyright, economics, golden goose, margins, music, recording industry
Companies: spotify
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Preempting whiners some more
Holders, not authors or artists. They use their income to get those creative juices flowing. The creative ways they use to subsume the copyrights of others with a promise to make them 'BIG'.
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Re: Preempting whiners some more
Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Key words being Authors and Inventors. The entire system is unconstitutional. Solid, irrefutable evidence right there in the US Constitution. Yet it was ignored. And as a result, built the corrupt system we have today.
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Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
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Re: Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
I.e., "you're neither the author nor the inventor of this thing, so no authority of the federal government can secure to you the exclusive right to it, regardless of what the author or inventor agrees to".
To the extent that the courts have considered this idea, they have apparently concluded that value of protecting the private right of contract by permitting the sale of such an exclusive right outweighs the value of what would be protected by forbidding such sales - but there's room to disagree with that conclusion, and I suspect that the commenter in question does so.
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Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
There is nothing in the constitution that says that that right is not transferable (i.e. sellable), which is what has happened.
The original holder of the copyright is the author/artist. If a corporation owns a copyright, it is because they bought the copyright, either directly, or indirectly via a commission or employment contract. An author/artist is granted an exclusive right, which they can and do then sell (or in the case of a work for hire, they sell ahead of time; future performance of a legal act being something that can and is sold all the time).
The IP system exists to protect, promote and reward the development of art and science; I believe it succeeds in doing so. IT IS NOT EFFICIENT IN ITS OPERATION, it can be improved (please, let's improve it, its horrible, especially in litigation, length of protection, and fair use standards), but it does perform its function.
The system is Constitutional, and I don't feel it is corrupt. Inefficient, yes, but not broken.
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Re: Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
And/or that A: the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to bestow the exclusive right on anyone but the author/inventor, B: the right only exists insofar as Congress bestows it, C: the act of transferring the right to someone else is equivalent to the act of transferring the bestowal to that someone else, and therefore D: since Congress does not have the power to bestow the right on anyone but the author/inventor, Congress cannot bestow the right on the recipient, and therefore the right evaporates as soon as the transfer occurs.
Neither logic has been accepted by the courts - ever at all, AFAIK - but they do seem at least internally consistent, and consistent with the wording of the Constitution.
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Re: Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
As a software developer I tend to disagree.
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Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
I disagree. Copyrights were considered assignable under the Statute of Anne, long before anyone even thought the US should be independent. The first copyright law in the US, Connecticut’s Act for the Encouragement of Literature and Genius of 1783, in the first sentence after the act’s preamble, provided that copyrights could be held by authors, their heirs, or their assigns (ie people they sold the rights to), predating the Constitution. The federal 1790 Copyright Act does the same sort of thing. It’s a standard feature.
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Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
There are too many streaming services. Spotify will choke and die because of the usual Silicon Valley stupidity: behaving like they’re already profitable. Go check out their salaries and the rents they pay for their overly garish offices; they’re hilarious.
-Drops mic and waits for the truth to be censored as usual.
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Re: Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
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Equity
Further, as was pointed out in the article, despite plenty of opportunity to create their own services, Big Music has failed to do so. Do they really see a relatively small investment in creating a service such a burden? Or is it more their intent to bottleneck the entire music industry so long as they might have some leverage to increase the 'rent'? What happens when that lever breaks?
We come back to that obscurity question. If their goal was more traffic (less obscurity) rather than more margin (likely more obscurity) they could embrace all these service companies, invest in them, help them to become profitable and spread music further than it currently is spread, which in turn creates larger revenues with fairly fixed costs. The other choice, more margin, will induce lower traffic which means likely less income, but even lower fixed costs, but would also make creating their 'new superstars' more difficult. It appears that they think margin rather than traffic is the answer, and likely because of shorter term, left effort intensive profits.
Can anyone help them to spell blind? Forrest, trees...nope can't see anything but sand.
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Re: Equity
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Re: Equity
Platforms like Spotify allow a relatively even playing field where a well known artists can show up right alongside someone just starting, and people can sample both to see which they prefer.
This has the potential to draw attention to the 'wrong' artist, and in turn raise questions as to why one artist should be required to hand over all the rights to their music to someone else under hilariously one-sided terms when others don't have to do so.
Open platforms provide an alternative to the parasitic labels, allowing people to avoid them and go directly to their listeners/fans/customers, which means the parasites lose both the control and profits that they are 'owed', and they simply cannot accept that, have no interesting in adapting and would rather force the world to adapt to them.
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Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
But I'll be happy if you're right for once and Spotify folds.
The advertising supported model TOO has been shaky since the 1930s. Since now pirates are able to steal the tunes and have local copies directly, WHY any of the giant outlets?
Now, the monopoly that you keep bashing is due to THE KEY AND TRANSCDENTAL MAKING OF PRODUCT. That's not "granted" but stated in the US Constitution because an individual Right. Period. So it's staying.
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Re:
And yet, here we are. An industry that's supposedly dying year after year, built upon the backbone of radio.
out_of_the_blue just can't stand it when due process is enforced.
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Re: Re:
It's actually an extremely interesting story:
First, the U.S. nationalizes all radio during WWI. Despite his academic background, Prez Wilson couldn't read the Constitution.
Then, after WWI, the U.S. created RCA for "all of us (citizens)".
FDR then realized that he could bypass "mainstream media" with this newfangled radio thingy, so the FCC was created to make sure that politicians got free access to these airwaves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Air:_The_Men_Who_Made_Radio
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Once again you get it wrong. The Constitution allows for the creation of IP legislation. It does not require or demand it. Congress is free to revoke all IP legislation, or parts thereof, as they see fit. Of course so long as we have the current ridiculous funding system they will continue to take advantage of the bribes paid (in the form of campaign contributions and promises of employment after government service) and that will likely prevent them from doing anything in the interest of the public, as apposed to the corporations.
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
"Spotify has NOTHING without artists."
True. But artists would be in a much worse position without streaming to take their work as far as possible, enabling audiences they wouldn't be able to dream of if they weren't there, right? Fair trade I say.
"Since now pirates are able to steal the tunes and have local copies directly, WHY any of the giant outlets?"
Because people pay for good services, convenience. Because a whole lot of people will support the artists when they feel it's worth their money. The average pirate downloads over ten thousand tracks and doesn't have the money to buy them all but they will spend money with stuff they like and, guess what, they know a lot of them because they downloaded stuff. I have paid for stuff from Finland and Japan that I'd have never spent money on if it wasn't for piracy. Currently streaming as I decided to go with the convenience once I got the money to pay for it.
"THE KEY AND TRANSCDENTAL MAKING OF PRODUCT."
Good luck selling something that doesn't reach your potential customers.
"That's not "granted" but stated in the US Constitution because an individual Right."
It's not. It's a privilege that the Congress can give or take at their discretion. You are those entitled dipshits I see.
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Return when you know more than nothing about the topic
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
The average person probably does not want to bother with copying their entire music library onto however many devices they use for music listening purposes. A streaming service such as Spotify works just as well and with far less hassle/wait.
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
At basis, is NO different from any radio station since the 1930s. Sheerly mechanical. Spotify has NOTHING without artists. Period.
A few thoughts on this. (1) If this is true, then why did it take nearly 20 years after the web was invented for it to come about. If it was such an obvious "radio on the web" then why didn't it happen sooner? (3) There were earlier attempts at doing something similar and they all failed to catch on. If it was just mechanical, that wouldn't be true. Spotify won by actually providing a much better experience. That you don't realize that suggests you have no idea what you're talking about. (3) Radio's business model works exactly the opposite of Spotify's. The more people who listen to radio, the more money the can make through higher ad rates. The more people who listen to Spotify, the more Spotify has to pay the copyright holders, which is part of what's holding them back. Their business model doesn't scale properly.
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Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
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Re: Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
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Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Labels are NO "innovator", they just uses the work of artists. At basis labels, are Sheerly mechanical. they have NOTHING without artists. Period.
The labels don't come close to providing the value Spotify does.
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Re: Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Oh wait, no they don’t, that’s what the labels do.
Try not to be a complete fucking idiot your whole life.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Labels skim off 99.9+%
Artists get diddly/squat
=/= Spotify paying nothing to artists.
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Yeah, that's why NBC, ABC, FOX and CBS aren't media empires.
That's why when you turn on the radio there's absolutely nothing being broadcast over the airwaves.
Because there's no way to build a business on advertising.
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Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
So do the record labels. Yet, somehow, more people buy CDs, mp3s and use Spotify than go to concerts. Maybe because it is easier to go to a local sotre/website, than travel cross country?
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Re:
If they succeed in killing Spotify, et. al., all they will do is wreck yet another source of revenue and fertilize the soil for more pirate sites to pop up. How is it possible they can collectively be that dumb?
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Re:
The music industry is fine. The recording industry, on the other hand, is absolutely fucked.
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Oh, I like recording industry for all the popcorn. It's better than bold&beautiful, and following the plot described in these legal papers is more fun than hollywood ever managed to create.
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By the way, kid: from out of the blue calling people "trolls",
WAY back I quoted Lew Kornfeld here (paraphrase this time): "You can't please everyone, but you can defnitely avoid going out of your way to make them angry." And yet you blunder on.
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Re: By the way, kid: from out of the blue calling people "trolls",
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Re: By the way, kid: from out of the blue calling people "trolls",
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The more people that sign up to Spotify, the more money they lose!!! After all these years, they still haven't made a profit. They are so far in debt at this point. I would assume that they couldn't borrow a bunch more money to keep the doors open, and so finally just went Public to get more money that way. I just don't see them around in 5 more years at how things are going for them.
As far as I know, Apple breaks even. But they don't have a bunch of freeloaders dragging them down. It's not making Apple money but is a service to Apple users. Like other UNIONS. They, the Music industry would rather drive company's out of business than working with them in a reasonable way. That goes for the unions killing a business if they can't flee out of the country just to keep their doors open. The Unions don't care. The Music Industry doesn't care. So short sited that they are, they are basically going to be the cause of Piracy to jump way up once again. If Spotify goes out of business, how many of those users are going to switch? All those free users will be jumping on the piracy bandwagon instead.
The costs are already way too high. To me, the service cost is just way too much money for what you get anyway. Video streaming from Netflix is cheaper than plan old Music streaming. Why is that? To me, Netflix is a better value. I can live without music. In fact these days I pretty much do. Other than the free streaming from being an Amazon Prime member. I'm instead tuned into audio blogs instead. Music is overrated. Most of it is crap these days. Like everything else, the copy protection on music is way, way too long. Long after the person has DIED. Nothing ever seems to go into the Public Domain anymore.
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Re:
The words "for limited times" have been ignored for too damn long.
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Monty Pythons - Meaning of Life - The Crimson Permanent Assurance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSO9OFJNMBA
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Illegal operations
There's a story (similar to the kodi boxes), where they had plans to create some software to play videos and other content in a settopbox style devices. What killed the plans was that there was no reasonable way to get licenses to hollywood's content, and their technology was completely useless without the hollywood's content. Note that this kills your claims of those companies being "innovative".
Reasonable people saw the problem from miles away and refused to start creating the technology, because it's clear that once hollywood rejects the license application, the only alternative is to go dark - i.e. make use of hollywood content without the license and take risk of copyright infringement lawsuits.
But because many talented people reject the invitation to start creating video players etc for fear of copyright infringement lawsuits, there's a lack of such people on the market -- the market wants people who don't care about the laws but instead are going to start a criminal piracy group. Obviously many existing piracy groups are quitting the activity after getting heat from lawyers, so there's demand for more of them.
The content really is king in this situation, it takes so much effort to create it, that noone wants to do it themselves, but everyone and their dog can create a video player using some open source pieces they didn't create themselves. Instead they all want to create the tech that just plays someone elses content and this is why they all scream programmers to use standard file formats like jpg, mp3, avi etc.
This is why we decided otherwise, and our plan is to create content ourselves. It seems significant enough challenge since noone seems to want to do it. We decided to reject the existing content formats and support only our own content. This is the the reason we can create stuff without copyright problems, its technically impossible to use content that someone else created in our platform and conversions from existing systems to our platform were made impossible.
This kind of technology choices - whether you want to create a piracy group or actually useful technology is what authors of software need to do. The useful tech is significantly more difficult to create than your average video player that plays existing stuff that are anyway available everywhere.
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Re: Illegal operations
It requires innovation on both parts to create value in the eyes of the consumer. Not saying the effort from both are equal but that you require innovation on both ends to make it work.
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Re: Re: Illegal operations
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Re: Re: Re: Illegal operations
Yeah, but why it is useful to repeat the same content over and over again?
We need original content which is unique - separately created.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Illegal operations
If you already own music or movies but when you change to the new format you can't go back and consume the old content you will be less likely to switch. Who wants to keep re-purchasing the content they like just because tech changed.
Now if you have a new stream/player that can do the new firmware all your older content the consumer will gladly use the new products because there is less risk and financial obligations to switch.
If you are talking about the fair use aspect, well see my first paragraph, people like he familiar. Also just because one found content entertaining in one aspect doesn't mean there isn't more to be loved if that same content gets morphed, tweaked, or re-done entirely.
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Re: Illegal operations
Er... No. Just because your technology depends completely on the license from someone does not make it suddenly old. In fact - most of the technology is based on something, quite often patented or copyrighted. Imagine we could have wheel patented and the patent holder refused to license. Following your logic all those horse carts, cars - phooe, not innovative at all (as to wheels being crucial for cars imagine a car with no wheels at all - not in the engine, not on the road, not for steering). Or, say, Nokia refused to license their patents on GSM. Ooopsie...
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Re: Re: Illegal operations
Well, the patent holder is already several years ahead of the curve, so you can't claim this stuff suddenly becomes innovative.
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So copyright holders are screwing over people. Gee who'd a thought? And how is this new? Same story, different characters.
Steamboat Willie would like to talk to them
/yeah I'm old
//my lawn...get off it
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Re:
There's tons of free platforms available, i.e. make a web page. It's like 2 minute task to create some crappy html file. That's already a platform.
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Re: Re:
This is why you need innovation to create a good platform that people want to visit or makes it easier/cheaper to consume the content. You must compete for the limited space you want your content to fill.
I would guess that even spending 2 days on a website isn't enough to properly innovate a good one. So just as above you can create content all day long but if no one can or is willing to put forth the effort to consume that content you have nothing.
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This is why I spent a little longer.
> So just as above you can create content all day long but if no one can or is willing to put forth the effort to consume that content you have nothing.
Well, you can always visit my web page at http://meshpage.org/ to see if it's high enough quality.
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Your content could be radically cool and even a game changer but... I don't know or trust your platform right now, so I'm not going there until it gets more popular and others have first put your platform though it's paces.
Good luck on making your content huge though.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So why are we creating anything if simple trust issues are the real problem? Guess the content and the platform was not really needed at all. After this, there's no point complaining that MPAA can't get their platforms implemented, if simple trust issues prevent people from using whatever is created.
Also complaning that products are not available in your area is no good, if the real problem is that you're refusing to use whatever is available. It has been proven now that technology is available, and users are just refusing to use it. If they feel that they lack suitable products, the users created that situation themselves by rejecting certain products which would have solved the problems.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So why are we creating anything if simple trust issues are the real problem? Guess the content and the platform was not really needed at all
You say that like trust issues are the be all and end all of only creation. Products don't make it to market worldwide precisely because some knuckle-dragging CEO doesn't think that he'll make an assload of money in another country, despite there being clear evidence of demand. So you get content and products that aren't available in Europe or other continents. And it's the people in these countries who are at blame for a decision someone else made despite willingness to give them money?
Also complaning that products are not available in your area is no good, if the real problem is that you're refusing to use whatever is available
Right, I forgot that you're the one who will fellate the corporations wherever and whenever possible. But you're the guy who thinks that Wray is absolutely correct about his magical backdoors so that goes a long way in deciding whether to take you seriously or not.
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There might be other issues preventing country entry than simply whether you think you can extract money from the end users or not. Maybe maintaining the user base is significant burden and it's simply not possible to expand the company scope any further. Your 2 person team might not be able to handle customers from belgia, when they send emails in their native language and refuse to speak english. Or some other issue...
> So you get content and products that aren't available in Europe or other continents.
If you didn't refuse to use local content, you wouldnt need to use products from other continents. Local content is still the king, but you just refused to even consider it. Are you expecting that global companies don't have anything better to do than provide service to some darknet's hidden corner?
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If you didn't refuse to use local content, you wouldnt need to use products from other continents.
Bottom line, if you don't provide products in other continents, you have no reason to complain when no money flows in from them. Insisting that everyone use only whatever they're geoblocked to is bloody ridiculous. Is everything you use locally made? Hell, half the shit you use probably isn't American. By your own logic you should have demanded that America provides everything and refuse to use any foreign alternatives.
But it's a good thing nobody thinks like you do or international trade would tank harder than a lead balloon.
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Obviously you also need to use definition of "local" where nearby areas in the internet are locally connected. It doesn't need to be american or even in same continent, as long as the author of the property is actually available.
Everytime author is available, is local in copyright circles. Key idea in "local" is that people are actually maintaining the friendships or the connections to the people, instead of googling for random shit from the net. So all the regular places you use for trolling are actually "local".
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I am glad you're not actually in charge of APIs or dictionaries that actually matter. (Or you might be, but since you refuse to say what they are I see no reason to believe that they don't exist.)
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As I said before you haven't even told me what content you create. So am I just supposed to believe all my problems are solved by an unknown product. That is not how you create value for your content.
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That is the point I was making.
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Well, that's what authors are supposed to do - create new content so that you can enjoy it. Now that it's available, you refuse to enjoy it. Doesn't much make sense.
> hosted on a new platform that you have stated is locked in a new proprietary format.
Well, web platform is converting content items to proprietary format called URLs. My solution uses that same solution.
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It's not just a simple click of a link. I need to reset or setup filters permitting your site to load on my device and check the legitimacy of your site (yes, I'm that paranoid). Then decide if I even want to be exposed to whatever the content is you create/host.
Again you can create innovative content all day but if your platform can't reach consumers (or create a desire in them to visit) then your content is worthless. To have a platform like that requires innovation. And what's funny is even after all your posts you still haven't created that desire, at least in me.
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How are you discovering new content? I thought posting these URL's would be the preferred way of discovering new content?
> I need to reset or setup filters permitting your site to load on my device and check the legitimacy of your site
Well, when I showed my site to my friend, he said it looked like I was uploading viruses to his computer. That's how advanced the content items are -- it doesnt look like your ordinary web page. But it's mostly because people do not trust browser vendors to do the right thing.
> Then decide if I even want to be exposed to whatever the content is you create/host.
You just need to trust browser vendors to protect your computer. Its like worldwide network of web pages, and this content is just one item from that dark content.
> Again you can create innovative content all day but if your platform can't reach consumers
This is why authors need to be available in the sites where their users are available. Techdirt seems like good choice to be available at, since users are paranoid control freaks and if I can convince them to visit the page, it proves that the site isn't dangerous for ordinary people.
> To have a platform like that requires innovation.
This is why I built my own 3d engine, used opengl technology, made it display correctly on web browsers, and created the actual content items. All this requires innovative solutions.
> And what's funny is even after all your posts you still haven't created that desire, at least in me.
Well, your content discovery solution isn't yet available this side of the planet, so it's no wonder that our solution has trouble using your discovery.
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I find content by using platforms that I trust, and on which content creators congregate, like YouTube, Jamendo etc. I also follow recommendations from content creators that I already follow. I don't follow random links, especially those that do no give a clue as what is at the end.
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So this seems to be the trust issue from the beginning of this thread?
> I don't follow random links, especially those that do no give a clue as what is at the end.
So this URL technology is no longer trustworthy?
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URL technology is neutral, but the content it leads to may or may not be trustworthy. That said, I do not trust follow me for a good time, as that is a pimps line, and that is what you offer via a link seems like.
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Sadly I based my technology to this URL stuff, expecting people to learn to trust that browser's sandbox for javascript and executable code inside browser has been checked well enough to not cause big damage.
But it's difficult to figure out how other people think about executable code inside their browser. Some web sites are showing popups and autostarting videos in unwanted way. Ads are also eroding trust to the browser environment. Yet I based my technology to the browser environment, hoping to get useful technology for the masses.
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Seriously, what is your tech and where can I avoid it?
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It's a competition to youtube. Using 3d graphics in web.
Sadly there's significant problems with the tech, given that we can't ensure that it is safe for end users to use it. Animations and 3d graphics has tendency to cause problems, whenever people just "look at it", i.e. interaction between human eyes and visual cortex reacts to quickly moving scenes in unexpected ways, requiring careful consideration to be used when publishing tv programs, video games, animations, adverticement banners, fast paced movie sequences, especially when target groups are small children. It is well known problem that the current web has significant problems in this area, mostly caused by flickering of the adverticement banners and scrolling of the web browser pages.
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And you want to lecture us about how the expiration of copyright means everything in the past must be destroyed, and how FBI-only backdoors exist?
Really?
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It's companies own problem if they didn't yet implement FBI-approved backdoors, even after politicians and law enforcement officers clearly explained the issue to you. Further companies are supposed to be ahead of the times, since law folks are always coming too late with the recommendations, so your average company already implemented those backdoors in 1980's...
Of course copyright expiration date is always coming late to the party, and in 2050 when all this stuff is expired, we might be dealing with complately different issues than some funny backdoors. Like destroying the stuff that greedy companies created.
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Wow, way to backtrack on all the points you've brought up.
The issue with the FBI-only backdoors is their insistence that backdoors that only the FBI can access are possible, despite multiple security experts telling them otherwise. Hell, the FBI shot its own damn foot by having a fucking atrocious history when it comes to their own opsec. Any key they get is going to be useless if it ends up in the hands of somebody else.
Your initial claim of destroying things was not over things that "greedy companies" created. It was about individual authors who published something they regretted, and you claimed the expiration of copyright mandated this destruction of past content. That's bullshit, and not ever mentioned in existing law.
If this is the sort of genius that runs whatever magical tech you can't even put a name or a location to, it's not as revolutionary as you think it is.
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Is this your best argument against the web page? It's not implemented? I thought the main complaint was that MPAAA cannot implement service like youtube. Now that it's available, you're claiming it's not implemented? Which part is missing?
(since you didn't even look at the site, you can't evaluate the quality of the work or find missing modules. Also partial implementation can be useful, even mighty youtube didn't start with comment sections implemented, when it launched few years ago)
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If that's a step too far for you, too damn bad.
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First a company is established which will engage in risky activity.
The first risk almost always comes about because of too many governments having jurisdiction. For an entertainment company that delivers its product by internet that is all governments in the world claim jurisdiction over. For a construction company it is almost everybody.
The second risk is almost always labor in some form or other. Any song writer, singer, producer, or entertainer, and there are thousands, can that their rights were violated in any government jurisdiction.
With that sort of open ended risk it is assured that some one, some where, is going to sue over something.
Once a high liability company has been established it is time for profits to be moved to a low risk companies. This is accomplished by charging excessive fees for intellectual property, production equipment and distribution. For example a second company is established that owns the intellectual property that the first company uses. A fee is then charged the first company that removes the profits from the first to the second. What is left at the first company is liability (both legal and financial) that insures failure of the first but success of the second. When the lawyers come knocking with suits at the first profits are protected in the second, third, or fourth level.
The first company does bankrupt. Left holding the bag is the fanciers of the first, the organizers, the suppliers of labor, and the holders of financial liabilities. Profits are still protected.
Rinse, wash and repeat under under different names.
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MTV repeat?
A similar situation could happen with Spotify, but if so, can Spotify convert to another business model as MTV did? Could Spotify survive by ditching the record labels and creating original content, or will the company be destined to fail if the record labels get too greedy?
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Re: MTV repeat?
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"I'll turn back that clock, just you watch me!"
I suspect that the motivation to keep killing off new services is a mix of short-sighted and/or indifferent greed, where it doesn't matter what happens to the service so long as they get 'their' share while it's still around, and an attempt to turn back the clock to when they were the only avenue to publish and/or buy.
When you either went through them or you didn't get heard, they had all the power, and they got all the money. As a result they were able to dictate terms, and it was their way or not at all.
If people however can publish, listen and purchase without having to sign their rights away then suddenly 'my way or not at all' becomes a lot less tempting. As such they probably imagine that if they can only kill off all the competing services then people will have to go back to them, artists and customers alike.
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Missed the bus
Music is personal. My music is 50s thru 80s. They don't make it any more... or if they do I don't know.i downloaded everything I wanted years ago. If at the time a reasonable pay option had been available, I'd have paid. There wasn't so the record(?) Companies "Missed the bus".
Plus, today's music sucks. ("Get off a my lawn you punks!") Something like Spotify could suggest new music that best resembles what I like. But, missed the bus they won't get the opportunity to suggest while taking my money
Sadly the book publishers are doing the same. A small few classic books are impulse priced ($3,00) but they are still locked into a platform. It's music all over again. Text is even simpler than MP3 but by insisting not to give me data in a format I want and charging more that a physical copy - I can hear that bus going by...
Tl:Dr- give me what I want and I'll pay. No? No.
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Copyright was never intended to be weaponized
Bad enough that holders can leverage their holdings to manipulate the market, but when they use it to prevent the market evolving in ways they can't control, it's too much.
IANAL, so I don't know that what's happened fits the bill to be a Monopoly or Trust, but to this layman's eye, that's what's been happening for many years, now - it predates the internet.
The industry fought tooth and nail against DVDs, remember? VHS tapes and cassette tapes? Ditto. Tech history is littered with the shenanigans of these guys, and every time they have sought to kill change. None of their horror stories have ever come to pass.
It is, I daresay, the same old story, same old song and dance, my friends.
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Re: Copyright was never intended to be weaponized
Copyright is NOT weaponized. I'm sure appears so to you pirates who are flouting all Copyright from Constitution down, will not pay to be entertained, just want to steal unlimited amounts of mindless drivel, and then blame the creators for wanting to be rewarded a trivial amount, but NEVER bothers me, only has advantages.
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Now BOLDLY repeat what Techdirt CENSORS! -- Back to that tactic.
Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
At basis, is NO different from any radio station since the 1930s. Sheerly mechanical. Spotify has NOTHING without artists. Period.
But I'll be happy if you're right for once and Spotify folds.
The advertising supported model TOO has been shaky since the 1930s. Since now pirates are able to steal the tunes and have local copies directly, WHY any of the giant outlets?
Now, the monopoly that you keep bashing is due to THE KEY AND TRANSCENDENTAL MAKING OF PRODUCT. That's not "granted" but stated in the US Constitution because an individual Right. Period. So it's staying.
Note to self: write a little re-processor to add all them double asterisks if the childish "hiding" tactic is again being used.
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Re:
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Re: Now BOLDLY ...
This isn't star trek, stop boldly going into the nonsense that is your mind.
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I would check into Arena Music if you haven't already...
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