Gatekeepers And The Economy

from the jobs-justify-anything dept

I was actually thinking about the TSA when I wrote this, but it applies just as well to IP.

Filed Under: economics, gatekeepers, jobs, walls

The Old Gatekeeper Journalism vs. The New Open Journalism

from the which-one-works-better? dept

Reader MrSlovenian points us to a really interesting story that highlights one way in which journalism is really changing, and how the old "gatekeeper" mentality fails. It kicks off with a story posted last Friday on Yahoo Sports via "The Sports Xchange," a service for syndicating news, written by veteran NFL reporter Len Pasquarelli. The story claimed that Indianapolis Colts defense end Robert Mathis was planning to hold out from training camp in an attempt to get an extension on his contract. Among the claims made by Pasquerelli was the following:

The Sports Xchange can report with some degree of certainty that Mathis ($2.41 million in 2011) has no intention of reporting to the club until/unless his contract is addressed.

Said one person close to the Mathis situation: "He'll never play another snap there under that (existing) contract."

Not surprisingly, an Indianapolis Colts fan blog, called 18to88, quickly posted the story and, at the same time, posted a direct Twitter message to Mathis, who uses Twitter. Pretty quickly, Mathis responded directly to the 18to88 writer, Nate Dunlevy, denying the story and noting that he wasn't planning to hold out because the team had other priorities to cover, indicating that his demanding more money would hurt the overall team and some of the other players. Dunlevy posted a detailed update, praising Mathis for his "team spirit."

So, at this point, we have a "veteran reporter" with a story on Yahoo Sports that quickly gets debunked by the main subject of that story responding to a question from a fan blogger on Twitter. The whole concept of the gatekeeper mentality of old school journalism was that it was the journalists who had the sources and that you, the lowly reader, had none. In the interactive world of today, that equation has shifted in many cases and the established press hasn't quite realized it yet.

Case in point: two days after Mathis debunked the story on his own Twitter feed and Dunlevy had written about this, Fox Sports reposted the entire original Pasquarelli article claiming that Mathis was going to hold out. The story also got picked up by an NBC football blogger, which drove even more attention to the story.

This new national attention, two days after Mathis has publicly denied the same story, got fans upset at Mathis and had him (once again) publicly (and reasonably angrily) denying the story. After this whole thing was pointed out, the NBC blogger, Gregg Rosenthal, updated his blog post, but the Fox News story and the Yahoo story remain unchanged.

Dunlevy has written up a full explanation of all of this as well, summarizing the whole thing nicely:

1. The mainstream story by a venerable reporter lacked any direct confirmation from the athlete in question in the story. Pasquarelli was obviously misled by a source. It happens, and it's not necessarily his fault, though one does have to wonder if it was so easy to get a comment from Mathis about the issue why he didn't manage to get one.
2. The mainstream media released a story that had been publicly refuted two days earlier.
3. It was online journalists that first found the story (me), sought to confirm the story (me), and then widely disseminated the story with the appropriate corrections (me and Rosenthal).

I don't think this is a point about "online news" vs. "mainstream" news, so much as it's indicative of a changing mindset in journalism as a whole. As mentioned, the old way was a gatekeeper way of thinking about things. Fact checking was done by the fact checking department and any corrections ran the following week in the small print. But that's not the way it works any more. Modern journalists know that news happens in real time, that sources are not hidden in a vault somewhere and that stories are continually updated. Old school journalists and journalism operations miss all that... and look foolish as a result.

Filed Under: fact checking, gatekeepers, journalism, len pasquarelli, robert mathis

Why Does The Entertainment Industry Seek To Kill Any Innovation That's Helping It Adapt?

from the it's-all-about-control dept

The LA Times recently had a good article about Hulu's struggles with its corporate parents, the various TV companies. While Hulu itself has been massively successful, the TV companies are suddenly claiming it's a threat (even though they own it) and are seeking to cripple the service in a misguided and shortsighted bid to "protect" their legacy offerings.

Combine that with our recent story about the record labels crippling Spotify and the Hollywood studios seeking to cripple Netflix, and you've got a pattern. Any time a new service comes along that helps drag the content industries into the present, the industry's hit back by trying to kill off or cripple the golden goose.

The simplistic answer is that the entertainment industry is all about control, and they freak out about these success stories (that make them money) because they realize they're losing control. I think it's a little more complex than that, but not too much. The established entertainment business, for many, many years, has operated under the principle of being the gatekeeper to their industry. They've (incorrectly) believed that their value and the key to their business is in being the gatekeeper. But the amazing thing about the internet is that it knocks down fences and walls with ease.

Gatekeepers don't make much sense.

If you view yourself as an enabler, then these new services seem great and wonderful and a huge opportunity. If you see yourself as a gatekeeper, you see these other services as a path to route around your gate. The mistake is in thinking that the answer is to shut down or limit that alternative. That's because, the alternatives (generally) are not really gatekeepers themselves. Of course, to the existing gatekeepers they look like gatekeepers, which leads to this reaction. But the reality is quite different. In a world where there are no real walls or fences, you don't need gates, and thus you don't need gatekeepers.

Instead, you need enablers: the curators, aggregators and filters who help you make sense of the wide open world. That's what Spotify, Hulu and Netflix all do, in a legal fashion. But it's also what various unauthorized sites and services do in an often less than legal fashion. But none of that changes the fact that the gates are no longer needed and the fences are down. Spotify, Hulu and Netflix aren't the new gatekeepers. They're compelling enablers who have built the new hotspot that people want to go to, because of the additional value they provide. Knocking them down doesn't bring back the need for the gates. Those are gone forever. It just takes away one of the more useful services -- which actually does pay the copyright holders -- and drives people to the many other (perhaps unauthorized) sources.

Filed Under: control, entertainment industry, gatekeepers, innovation, movies, music
Companies: hulu, netflix, spotify

Cable And Hollywood Fight Having Their Gatekeeper Status Taken Away

from the inevitable-is-coming dept

Matthew Lasar has a nice writeup about how the big cable lobbyists, NCTA, and movie studio lobbyists, MPAA, are fighting as hard as possible to stop an FCC proposal to create a standard, called AllVid, that would allow any consumer electronics maker to tap into their content (legally, and for those actually subscribed), and display it via the device. Right now, of course, if you get cable TV, you're limited to the hardware they give you, which means if they don't want to let some other manufacturer come in with a more innovative system, you're stuck. Google -- who is pushing its Google TV product, and Sony, who has a variety of plans for set-top boxes, would prefer a standard so that they can sell you the boxes, and you can access the TV content you're already subscribed to, along with wider content from the internet.

But, if there's one thing that's become clear over the years, it's that gatekeepers will go to amazing lengths to keep those gates in place. So while the FCC seems very interested in moving forward on such a standard, NCTA has announced that it will pretty much destroy all of civilization:

Sony/Google are asking the Commission to ignore copyright, patent, trademark, contract privity, licensing, and other legal rights and limitations that have been thoroughly documented.

Of course, almost none of that is actually true, but boy does it sound impressive. Sony and Google aren't asking for any of those things. They're simply asking for a way that they can provide devices that can tap into an account holder's legally authorized content, and add additional services around it. Think of it like a Carterphone for cable TV -- meaning that you no longer have to get your phone from AT&T, but can buy a third party phone.

But, of course, even the MPAA is against that, as it's siding with the NCTA with a "but... but... piracy!" argument that also makes no sense:

"legitimate MVPD and online content sources will be presented in user interfaces alongside illegitimate sources (such as sites featuring pirated content)," MPAA warns. "In essence, this 'shopping mall' approach could enable the purveyor of counterfeit goods to set up shop alongside respected brand-name retailers, causing consumer confusion."

Yes, think about what you're reading for a second, and then shake your head at the level of confusion coming out of the MPAA. They want to block an FCC plan to make it easier to access authorized and legitimate content, because it's also easy to access pirated content. In the MPAA's twisted view of the world, it's better to leave just the pirated content as easy to access, because if the authorized content was just as easy to access, people might think it's legit. Are they really serious over there?

Who knows where all of this will lead, but the key thing that becomes clear in all of this is that cable does not want to give up its gatekeeper status. Even though a system that would better integrate cable content with additional internet content would clearly be a benefit to consumers, it would also mean a loss of gates, and we're dealing with yet another industry that incorrectly thinks it needs gates to survive. So, rather than add value to the consumer experience, it's actively fighting against it.

Filed Under: cable, gatekeepers
Companies: mpaa, ncta

Nice To See How Content Creators Have More Power Over Middlemen

from the it's-not-about-the-middlemen dept

We've talked a lot about how the role of middlemen is changing quite a bit these days. In the past, it was about them being gatekeepers. If you wanted to be a successful musician you had to sign a deal with one of a tiny number of big record labels. If you wanted to be a filmmaker you had to get a big studio to help you out. If you wanted to be an author, you had to sign a deal with a big publisher. And, since those middlemen acted as the only paths to success, they were able to dictate absolutely ridiculous terms. Just take, for example, the typical record label contract, which wasn't just a "loan" or an "investment," but them basically buying all of your copyrights and you still have to pay all of the money back from your earnings... but you don't get the copyrights back after you do so. These were amazingly one-sided deals that totally put the middlemen in the power position.

What's fascinating (and wonderful) to see today is how the changing marketplace means that the actual content creators are in control. This doesn't mean the death of middlemen -- not by a long shot. There's still a huge role for middlemen to play -- but it's as enablers, not gatekeepers. In a world with enablers, the content creators are still the ones in control. The middlemen become supporting players. This is why I always find it funny when those who support the old system claim that they're the ones "helping" creative types. But that's clearly not the case. What they're helping are the gatekeeper middlemen, who have done everything possible to pressure content creators into bad deals because they had no other choice. These days, thanks to the wider choices enabled by the internet, content creators are able to restack the pyramid and put themselves in control, with middlemen actually helping, rather than capturing all of the value.

We already wrote about Conan O'Brien's embrace of social media in Fortune's article about Conan 2.0, but there was another part of the article that I wanted to highlight in this post. And that's the fact that the deal O'Brien signed with TBS is quite different than the traditional TV deal, in that it's not TBS's show that O'Brien appears on, but it's O'Brien's show... with TBS as a distribution partner. But O'Brien and his company really have all the control -- including over the digital side of things. Even the video clips from his show don't come from TBS or use a TBS video player. They're all Team Coco.

O'Brien is in control of all the on-air creative and, just as important, all the digital use of his content. He and his production company Conaco own the show.... It's the opposite of O'Brien's setup at NBC, says Ross, a partner in the company. "Conaco owns the show, and TBS is a participant. At Tonight, NBC owned the show, and we were participants." And ownership makes all the difference for O'Brien and his team.

Team Coco, not TBS, chooses which clips to use, edits them, and posts them. Preview clips from each night's taping go up an hour before the show's East Coast broadcast; within an hour after the show's West Coast broadcast more than a half-dozen clips from that night's show are posted on its site and Facebook, and linked to via Twitter; and the full show is viewable online the next day at 11 a.m. Eastern time. Last year at The Tonight Show Bleyaert had tried to get pre-show clips posted, but even that seemingly simple idea was difficult to execute because NBC.com ran the show's site, and putting up such clips wasn't part of its normal workflow process. "After the experience that we had at NBC, we wanted to be in control," says O'Brien's agent, Rosen. "We wanted the freedom to exploit our content."

This reminds me of another story from a few years back about a band that announced a label had signed with them, rather than them signing with a label. It's happening slowly, but the power positions are shifting and the fact that the gatekeeper role is less and less important, and the enabler role is more and more important, also means that the content creators themselves have more power. They no longer need to sign soul-crushing, abusively one-sided deals. Instead, they can sign deals that put them in control, where the middlemen are truly middlemen helping the content creator, rather than owning the content creator.

We're really not there yet, for most content creators however. The old types of deals are still being signed. But I think we're starting to see signs of that changing. It'll take more time, but the good news is that the content creators are getting more leverage, just as the old middlemen are starting to lose their leverage. And the end result should be a lot better in the long run. The middlemen still have their role in the middle, rather than at the top of the pyramid.

Filed Under: conan o'brien, content creators, gatekeepers, middlemen

EU Commissioner Warns Copyright Middlemen To Get With The Times

from the about-time dept

TorrentFreak points us to a recent speech given by Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, in which she gives a warning to "copyright middlemen," that they need to adapt to the changing times:

Borders are now crossed more easily than ever before in history. It is a great opportunity for artists and creators of all kinds, as art has no limits but those of our minds. Art enriches itself by eliminating artificial barriers between people such as borders between countries.

Just as artists have always travelled, to join sponsors, avoid wars or learn from masters far from home, now digital technology helps them to cross borders and break down barriers. Their work can be available to all. In a sense, the internet is the realisation of the Renaissance dream of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: all knowledge in one place.

Yet, it does not mean there are no more obstacles to sharing cultural and artistic works on the net. All revolutions reveal, in a new and less favourable light, the privileges of the gatekeepers of the "Ancien Regime". It is no different in the case of the internet revolution, which is unveiling the unsustainable position of certain content gatekeepers and intermediaries. No historically entrenched position guarantees the survival of any cultural intermediary. Like it or not, content gatekeepers risk being sidelined if they do not adapt to the needs of both creators and consumers of cultural goods.

Of course, the real issue is that middlemen who are used to being gatekeepers need to get away from the gatekeeper mindset, and realize that it's time to be enablers instead of gatekeepers -- but that's difficult to do.

There's also the admission that copyright "should not be an end in itself," which it too often appears to be for some in the industry:

Take for instance copyright. For 200 years, it has proved a powerful way to remunerate our artists and to build our creative industries. But copyright is not an end in itself. Copyright exists to ensure that artists will continue to create. Yet we see more and more often that it is not respected. In some sectors, the levels of piracy demand that we ask ourselves what are we doing wrong. We must ensure that copyright serves as a building block, not a stumbling block.

Look at the situation of those trying to digitise cultural works. Europeana, the online portal of libraries, museums and archives in Europe, is one key example. What a digital wonder this is: a single access point for cultural treasures that would otherwise be difficult to access, hidden or even forgotten.

Will this 12 million-strong collection of books, pictures, maps, music pieces and videos stall because copyright gets in the way? I hope not.

Of course, what Kroes is really pitching is the ongoing campaign to harmonize European copyright laws into a single copyright law across the EU, that will also include a single licensing setup. This effort has been under way for a while, and hasn't gone all that well, in part, because the various countries that make up the EU know that there are vast differences in each market, and they're not convinced a single copyright regime actually does make sense. So, while the language Kroes uses sounds good, it's probably more about complaints concerning regional differences, rather than a recognition that overall copyright law is broken.

Filed Under: copyright, gatekeepers, middlemen, neelie kroes

The Myth Of Originality...

from the it's-not-what-you-think dept

Nina Paley alerts us to a neat writeup (with illustrations) that she did, discussing the concept of originality, and why it's so often misconstrued. First, things that many people think are "original" usually aren't very original at all. They tend to be derivative in some way or another -- a point that we've made here many times. And yet, many people seem to think that there's some sort of objective standard for originality, and that something that involves a direct copy of something else as part of the process can't count as original (though, they conveniently ignore it when "the greats" like Mozart or Shakespeare did a direct cut-and-paste type of copying in their own works).

Paley then goes on to make a second point: which is that the traditional gatekeepers of culture, for all their talk of the importance of originality (whenever they talk down any kind of copying) are actually more likely to stomp on anything truly original, because there is no "proven market" for it. A movie has to fit a certain formula. A hit pop song must meet a series of pre-programmed conditions. No originality allowed.

So where is originality really? It's not an intrinsic value in the work, but in the perception of how people view a work. I find things like Kutiman's music tremendously original and unique, but in the comments here, critics have decried his efforts as "cut and paste copying" of little value. So different people have different takes on originality. Why should we set in place laws that enforce some sort of official standard on what is, and what is not, original, when it's our own perception that really determines what is original?

Separately, Paley recently also put together this neat short film that does a nice job of demonstrating that all artwork is derivative:

Filed Under: creativity, derivative works, gatekeepers, nina paley, originality

Do People Still Write Letters To The Editor?

from the the-conversation-has-changed dept

I had a somewhat surreal experience a month ago. Out of the blue I received an email from someone from Rolling Stone magazine, saying that they wanted to know if I wanted to write a letter to the editor about an article in the upcoming issue -- and if I was interested they would ship me a copy of the magazine overnight. There were a bunch of things about this that didn't make any sense. First, they solicit letters to the editor?!? I had no idea. Second, they would overnight me a copy of the physical magazine? Just send me a digital copy. Finally, if I have something to say, I'm much more likely to just say it here than compose a "letter to the editor." The whole thing was so confusing that I emailed back to make sure that they were serious, and to ask if they always solicit letters to the editor. I didn't hear back for a bit, but a week later, a woman emailed back and said that they sometimes solicit letters from people to go along with the general letters they just get (she also pointed me to a URL since the article had been published in the interim, and there was no longer any need to overnight the magazine).

However, since then I've been thinking about what an out-of-date concept the whole "letter to the editor" is, so it comes as little surprise that Vice magazine skipped the Letters to the Editor this month, instead posting a whining rant online about how they don't get real letters any more:

You know what? No letters page this month. You know why? Because we aren't receiving enough real letters. We mainly get emails now, and people don't think when they write emails. They just pump them out, which makes them hard to reply to. We sat here and looked at like 50 emails we've gotten in the last couple days and it was really depressing. It's like trying to come back to a burp or a fart. What can you say? "Nice fart"? "Subpar belch, but try again"?

And we used to get great letters. They would arrive in decorated envelopes along with goofy little tokens, tchotchkes, gizmos, and gifts inside -- even cheap stuff like newspaper clippings or a photo or a drawing was nice. Now we just get retarded fucking emails...

I guess if that were the situation, I could see going out and soliciting better Letters to the Editor as well, but the fact is the whole Letters to the Editor concept seems pretty antiquated at this point. It was based on the premise that the magazine publishers and editors were the gatekeepers of the content, and if you didn't like it, you could potentially get your say in -- but only if they chose your comment out of a pile of others, and then it would likely be edited down anyway. It wasn't a conversation. It wasn't participation. It was letting the riff raff have their carefully moderated say as filler.

Of course, this sort of thinking can still be found in certain media industry folks who still pine for those "good old days" when people didn't really talk back. Witness a recent column in Toronto's Globe and Mail where the author trots out the tired complaints about bloggers that went out of style in 2004. It's the usual stuff about how most blogging is crappy, and how dare the riff raff think that they have a voice:

And now there is blogging, and comments. Readers may take 30 seconds to post a comment on a story or blog item that a writer dashed off in a minute. On The Globe website, our slogan is "Join the Conversation," but in the blogosphere, what follows isn't usually a conversation but a brief, ungrammatical shouting match. You can have more pensive chats in a bar fight.

And journalism wasn't meant to be a conversation, anyway. It was maybe a monologue, at its most democratic a carefully constructed dialogue. If readers didn't like or agree with the monologues in paper A, they bought paper B. What was most important about their opinions was that they thought enough to spend the coin.

There's also some nonsense about how people only have a finite number of things to say, and therefore you should save it for important publications like a magazine or a newspaper. In other words, please shut up and let us go back to telling you what's important. And then these old school media types wonder why we don't want to participate under their rules?

Filed Under: conversation, gatekeepers, journalism, letters to the editor