German Scriptwriters Attack 'Greens, Pirates, Left-wingers And Internet Community' For Daring To Have Different Views On Copyright

from the yet-more-entitlement dept

The German series "Tatort" ("Crime Scene") has been running since 1970, and remains one of the most popular programs on German television. Given this venerable position, it's perhaps not completely surprising that its scriptwriters -- 51 of them -- have written an open letter complaining about the supposedly negative attitudes of some groups to copyright (German original). But what is noteworthy is the tone and content of the letter.

It's addressed to "Dear Greens, dear Pirates, dear Left-wingers, dear Net community" -- as if these share a common position on copyright reform, which indicates just how little the authors of the letter understand their respective policies. The letter itself is framed in terms of what the scriptwriters term "life lies".

The main "life lie" concerns the idea that the term of copyright needs to be shortened to make it fit for the digital age, where huge numbers of people are creators as well as consumers:

Not only does the author suffer expropriation through a reduction in the copyright term and is thus dramatically worse off, no, this proposal doesn't even change the situation of the supposedly innocent end-user one bit: your illegal downloads or streams concern mostly the absolutely latest films, music, books, photos and designs -- and not works that are, say, 20, 40 or 60 years old. A shortening of the copyright term would change nothing for this problem, and would be purely symbolic: look, we have taken something away from the authors....

This shows an extraordinary lack of understanding on the part of the Tatort scriptwriters. Nobody is suggesting that reducing the term of copyright will "solve" the problem of unauthorized downloads: it addresses a completely different question to do with the re-use of copyright materials, something the signatories of the letter seem unable to grasp.

But more remarkable is the sense of entitlement -- the idea that authors have a right to a copyright term that for practical purposes is typically in excess of one hundred years (life plus 70 years in most jurisdictions.) They call any reduction of copyright "expropriation", and seem blissfully unaware that this necessarily implies that the repeated extension of copyright from the original 14 years of the 1710 Statute of Anne was a similar "expropriation" of the public domain.

The point here is that there is no reason why the term of copyright should only increase, or why it should not be reduced back to its original levels, or even beyond -- it's for society to decide how long the state-backed monopoly ought to be, and how much incentive is needed to encourage creativity. The scriptwriters' view, as laid bare in this open letter, reveals an indifference to the public's thoughts that borders on contempt.

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Filed Under: copyright terms, germany, public domain, scriptwriting, tatort, television

The Many Killers Of The Film Industry Vol. 3: Post-Ellipsis And Beyond Television

from the vhs:the-metallic-killer/new-revenue-stream dept

[If you're just joining us, be sure to check out Volume 1 and Volume 2 in this series, which tells the true story of how the movie industry was killed over and over by each new advancement in eyeball-oriented entertainment. Volume 3 is the exciting followup to the breathtaking "..." that ended Volume 2. What lies beyond? Words. A lot of them.]

Post-Ellipsis
The movie industry, flush with success, strutted away from the battle that never was, having successfully fended off its new drinking buddy, television. Up to its collective ears in record-breaking movie receipts, the film industry (yet again) kicked back on its gold-plated laurels and lazily watched the money roll in.

The cinema was enjoying a new Golden Age, ushered in by the advent of the multiplex, the still-viable drive-in industry and some of the finest movie-making ever, in the form of Airport, Airport '75, Airport '77 and Airport '79: New Moon.

But as was foretold by the harrowing ellipsis at the end of the last volume, a new enemy would rise (mostly from the East). This new invention would kill the film industry harder that it had ever been killed before.

The VCR
Japanese electronics company JVC kicked Old Man Movie right in the throat with its VHS (Video Home System) player that promised a new era of TV and movie-dependent independence. Now people could watch television and movies in the comfort of their own home, on their own schedules. No more standing in line at the box office or endless waiting for their favorite programs to hit syndication. The public was now in command of its mostly pre-recorded destiny, leading to skyrocketing VCR sales and new highs in box office receipts.

Quite obviously, home taping was once again killing an industry.

An apoplectic Jack Valenti (representing the MPAA) stormed a listless Congress, demanding that they get off their overstuffed asses and do something, goddammit. During his Oscar-worthy performance, Valenti compared the theoretical damage done by home taping to a combination of the Holocaust, My Lai Massacre and that time when he got beat up in grade school.

The television industry fought back, claiming that the public had no right to watch their favorite shows and movies whenever and wherever the hell they wanted to. "What of our precious and highly annoying advertising?" it pleaded. "They'll be able to skip past it, thus rendering our efforts useless. Not to mention blockbuster lineups like ‘Must See Thursday,' which will now become ‘Can See Whenever the Hell We Want, Possibly Even Next Week.'"

The Positive Negatives of the VCR Invasion
Fortunately, the film and TV industries greatly overestimated the public's willingness and ability to program their VCRs, meaning that most viewing was still prerecorded movies or "live" TV. In fact, the general inscrutability of the VCR usually meant that it was regarded as a minor household diety whose mood swings and impenetrable manual were tolerated in exchange for nearly "on-demand" viewing.

Much like any diety, the VCR would periodically demand a sacrifice, devouring random tapes like "Child's First Birthday" (priceless) or a New Release rental from Blockbuster (considerably more expensive).

Not only that, but the VCR's entropic delivery system caused videotapes to degrade steadily in a short period of time, soon reducing the act of re-watching an "old favorite" to a tedious hour or two of dicking around with the tracking in a futile attempt to make the movie look like something other than scrambled Cinemax porn featuring dialogue recorded underwater.

"Boon:" Not Actually a Dirty Word
Not every industry felt threatened, however. The new videotape proved to be a boon to the porn industry, which was thrilled to have another delivery system. Porn theater staffers were thrilled to see their semen cleanup time drop by over 50%. Porn aficionados were thrilled to be able to "privatize" their perversions, without fear of being accosted by women's right groups, soft news journalists or the Sarasota, FL Sheriff's Department.

Unfortunately, a related industry fell victim to this new portable, rentable menace. The suddenly embattled trench coat industry fought this turn of events with "Home Masturbation is Killing the Trench Coat Industry" pickets. This movement never really took off however, mainly due to the fact that few people were willing to wear t-shirts or hoist signs with the word "masturbation" prominently featured.

As the years went on and prices dropped, the movie industry began to embrace this "threat" as a powerful ally in its constant struggle to make even more money. They were delighted to discover that the public was more than willing to purchase something they had most likely already paid to watch in a theater. They were made positively giddy with the realization that the public would buy the same movie twice, provided one version was slapped with a "Special Edition" label and contained a cursory 5-minute "Making Of" featurette cobbled together from second unit footage and "found sound" recordings.

The movie rental business was thrilled as well, what with it suddenly having a reason to exist, along with the opportunity to charge $3.99/night for "New Releases" that had been on the "Just In" wall for nearly half a decade.

Coming up next:
A veritable rogue's gallery of industry killers, each more diabolically deadly than the last.

Filed Under: disruption, fear, innovation, internet, movies, television

The Many Killers Of The Film Industry: Volume 2 - A Disaster Called Television

from the setting-box-office-records-from-beyond-the-grave...-apparently dept

[Those of you following along will remember the cliffhanger ending of Volume 1, in which it was revealed that "something" would come along and destroy the movie industry with its tiny screen and tinny sound. In this followup, we reveal the true killer of the film industry, which is also one of the many pretenders to the throne.]

A Disaster Called Television
Little did Roger Philco and Francois Magnavox know when they assembled the first "magic picture box" that it would change American society as we knew it, mostly for the worse.

There was no indication during its early broadcasts of test patterns, puppet shows and white men in blackface that the daily life of Americans would soon revolve around it. Instead of gathering around the wireless to watch Dad get drunk and curse the Yankees, the whole family would gather around the tiny screen to watch Elvis from the waist up or catch breaking footage from the moon landing set.

The movie industry understood how serious this new threat could be and stepped hastily over the still-cooling corpse of live theater to denounce the new "tele-vision," which would surely destroy their precious industry. They lamented this turn of events, cursing every new box office record and crying into their stacks of $1000 bills.

Representatives of the "dying" industry called on Congress to do "something" about the "talking picturemajig." How can we get people to sit in front of our 42-foot screens, enjoy our Technicolor and Sensurround when they have 3 inches of black and white power at home, all coming to them in deafening mono?

Congress was too busy watching the National League Championship to be bothered by an outdated industry and their rhetorical questions, no matter how many bribes and high-dollar hookers they waved around. Another blow was struck when forward-thinking Dwight Eisenhower announced his bold plan for America: a television in every house, a car in every garage and an epidemic of childhood obesity.

Disaster? Or Powerful, Distracting New Ally?
The movie industry was premature in its panic. Americans soon proved they had the leisure time for both activities, which could easily be squeezed in between backyard barbecues and conceiving the eventual bankrupters of Social Security.

During the early '50s, the average male enjoyed a 25-hour work week, divided between harassing the typing pool, pounding martinis and hitting the golf course. The remaining time they spent watering the lawn, washing the car, pounding martinis and pounding the wife (mostly in a sexual fashion, but often in a physical fashion).

TV grew and grew, becoming the focal point of American family life. Television producers turned the mirror on the public, reflecting life as they knew it in the form of sitcoms, playing up spousal abuse ("I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners") and sexless marriages (every other sitcom). They also went after more respected institutions with uncanny accuracy. (See also: "The Andy Griffith Show" and its devastating take on inept law enforcement and artistic whistling, or "Bewitched" and its brilliant satire of the advertising world, long before "Mad Men" made it cool to be casually sexist again.)

As its influence grew, television turned its unblinking eye on other "hot button" topics such as the Korean War ("M*A*S*H*"), teen hoodlums ("Happy Days") and greed (every game show). TV devoured everything in its path over the next 50 years, before going all ouroboros and devouring itself, shitting out show after show containing no actors, no script and starring everyday people like Balloon Boy's dad.

As the airwaves were conquered by Joe Gloryhound and his occasionally-swapped wife, the film industry breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that TV's "tapped-outness" would allow them to continue to collect billions of dollars a year cranking out sequel after sequel. Directors such as Michael Bay were allowed to continue trafficking in explosions and recycled punchlines. All was well in the word, until...

Coming up next:
Post-ellipsis!

Filed Under: film industry, television

Fox Responds To 'Piracy Surge' By Answering A Different Question

from the you-didn't-answer-the-question dept

Exactly as we predicted, when the Fox Network hid its TV shows online behind various paywalls and delays, the rate of infringement on those shows shot way up. Eriq Gardner, over at THResq spoke to a Communications VP at Fox to get his response about all those people going to unauthorized means to get their content, and in true "Communications VP" fashion, Scott Grogin deftly ignores the key question and focuses on a secondary claim from the original TorrentFreak article, the suggestion that these delays were about getting people to watch TV live:

The TorrentFreak blog post is a little over the top. The story indicates that we 'took this drastic step in the hope of getting more people to watch shows live and thus make more revenue.' Nothing could be further from the truth.

Authenticating viewers is not about making sure they only watch live...in fact, quite the opposite—we support a 'TV Everywhere' proposition and are working with our distribution partners to benefit our businesses. It's about receiving fair value so we can continue to produce this expensive and high quality programming. We are pursuing a strategy where the 90+ million households who pay to watch our programming via cable/satellite/telco will ultimately receive maximum benefit. They can watch live, via DVR, on VOD, online, or through one of the various tablet apps that allow in-home viewing.

We are actively in negotiations with all cable/satellite/telco providers regarding authentication of their customers. We hope to announce several more agreements before the start of the new television season in mid-September.

The issue of watching "live" or not is really a side matter, and was perhaps a bit of hyperbole from TorrentFreak. What those guys clearly meant was that this is a weak effort by Fox to keep people watching via TV or via a big cable/satellite provider. And, I'm sorry, but this line is pure bull:

We are pursuing a strategy where the 90+ million households who pay to watch our programming via cable/satellite/telco will ultimately receive maximum benefit.

Anyone who claims that to offer maximum benefit to one set of people, you have to take away features from others isn't being particularly honest. To offer maximum benefit, you offer maximum benefit. Could Fox offer new additional features to such subscribers? Sure. That would be interesting and perhaps a good strategy. But taking the content away, when it's so readily available via unauthorized means doesn't help provide maximum benefit to subscribers at all. It drives more people to unauthorized means of access (where Fox gets no money at all), and actually takes away value from those subscribers. That's because one reason why people watch hit shows right away is so they can discuss them with friends. Fox has now made it more difficult to discuss with friends because it's that much harder to watch its shows.

Filed Under: downloads, fox, piracy, television
Companies: fox, news corp.

Could The Internet & Television Be Making Everyone Smarter?

from the i-thought-google-made-us-dumb dept

To hear the neoluddites talk, Google makes us stupid. And, of course, there's a common belief out there that television and video games similarly are somehow "dulling" the brain. But, if that were the case, then we'd be seeing some pretty specific evidence of that by now. And that's a problem. Because the actual data seems to be going in the other direction. Reason points us to Jonah Lehrer's reporting on a new study that suggests the smartest kids have been getting smarter over the past few decades.

There had already been reports showing that the average IQ keeps creeping upwards, but many suggested this was because of efforts to bring the bottom half up. That is, over the past few decades we've generally improved the quality of education and especially focused on helping those who struggle, more than in the past. We've also increased educational opportunities for groups that got much less attention in the past. However, there hadn't been much exploration of the top of the curve. Were the smartest getting smarter too? The latest research suggests the answer is absolutely:

The effect was found in the top 5% at a rate similar to the general distribution, providing evidence for the first time that the entire curve is likely increasing at a constant rate. The effect was also found for females as well as males, appears to still be continuing, is primarily concentrated on the mathematics subtests of the SAT, ACT, and EXPLORE, and operates similarly for both 5th and 6th as well as 7th graders in the right tail.

Of course, my own initial reaction to the studies about increasing IQ was to wonder if there might be a different factor: the test itself. It's entirely possible that the standards of the test changed and/or people somehow were "teaching to the test." That could still be true of this newest study, but for whatever it's worth, the new study does not rely just on IQ tests, but a variety of different measures, which at least (hopefully) minimizes the impact of the test itself.

Either way, it certainly calls into question the claims of an Idiocracy world, driven by our interactions with modern technology. In fact one hypothesis put forth by researchers is that "the increasing complexity of entertaining" may actually be helping quite a bit here:

The question, of course, is what this stimulation might consist of? It obviously has to be extremely widespread, since the IQ gains exist at the population level. One frequently cited factor is the increasing complexity of entertainment, which might enhance abstract problem solving skills. (As Flynn himself noted, “The very fact that children are better and better at IQ test problems logically entails that they have learned at least that kind of problem-solving skill better, and it must have been learned somewhere.”) This suggests that, because people are now forced to make sense of Lost or the Harry Potter series or World of Warcraft, they’re also better able to handle hard logic puzzles.

Of course at this stage, that's nothing but a hypothesis, so I'm hesitant to give it too much credence yet.

If I had to take a wild, flying guess (and yes, I'm saying this is a total guess), I'd wonder if the increase is because we end up communicating much more with other people these days. Some of it is that we communicate textually, rather than verbally, much more often than in the past. So children spend a lot more time with the written word -- even if lots of it is considered silly or banal. However, I believe that intelligence increases the most through the spread and sharing of ideas and conversation. The more you have ideas challenged the more you have to think through the logic of what you're saying and try to improve your arguments and cognition around those ideas. And, just in general, I believe intelligence is mainly expanded through pattern matching and the intersection of new ideas. The more one communicates with others, the more likely you are to hit those sparks of ideas together, and generate that new knowledge and cognition.

I don't know how one would go about studying that, but I'm sure it would make for some fascinating research.

Filed Under: internet, iq, smarter, television

Parents Television Council Accused Of Dumping Petitions, Just Focused On Cash

from the well,-look-at-that... dept

We've written a few times about the Parents Television Council, the infamous nonprofit group that sends out alerts any time anything it considers indecent is aired on TV or shows up elsewhere that the PTC doesn't like. Back when Kevin Martin was at the FCC, the PTC actually appeared to have some influence, but since then, its influence has clearly dwindled quite a bit. And with a court recently rejecting the FCC's attempts at fining those who upset the PTC as unconstitutional, the organization is apparently struggling with being relevant. I'd also guess that a growing number of people think that PTC's fear mongering is totally ridiculous and unfounded. For example, its latest grandstanding is about the CBS TV show $#*! My Dad Says. I would guess that most people simply don't care. And that's reflected in the fact that donations are way down to the PTC, and while the group claims 1.3 million members, only about 12,000 people seem to actually be active.

However, the NY Times recently had an article that suggests things are even more screwed up for the PTC than what was already known. It includes accusations from a whistleblower who worked at the PTC that the organization would ignore petitions that were sent in, just taking donations and not doing anything with the material. To understand what apparently happened, you need to understand how the PTC works. It generally sends out hyped up FUD-filled "petitions" that it asks people to sign, with promises that the PTC will pass them on to the FCC or whoever else. Except, the accusations claim that the PTC would take the returned envelopes, take out the cash, but then never pass them on to the FCC.

For a group that tries to present itself as being super ethical, taking money and failing to live up to what you promised to do in exchange for the money seems pretty unethical.

The group's response to this seems to be to attack the whistleblower, trying to turn his request for severance after he left the organization into a claim that he was trying to extort money from them. Unfortunately for the PTC, after the LAPD investigated the accusations of extortion, it found that the guy did not commit extortion. Rather than admitting that, it seems that any time anyone brings up these questions, the PTC goes right back to accusing the guy of extortion. At some point, you'd have to think that if the PTC continues to make such charges, the guy might actually have a decent defamation claim against them....

Filed Under: indecency, morality, television
Companies: parents television council

Hulu Finally Announces Subscription Plans: $10/Month To Still Get Advertisements

from the well-that's-comforting dept

As has been predicted and expected for quite some time, Hulu has finally announced its subscription plans. Let's start with the one thing they got right: unlike some newspaper paywalls and such, they're not technically putting the existing offerings behind this subscription wall. Technically, you can still use Hulu for free the same way you did in the past, but as I explain in a bit, this might not work out in practice. So what do you get for your $10 per month? Well, you get access to the latest full season of shows from ABC, NBC and Fox (co-owners of Hulu). Of course, this isn't exactly a benefit. It just means that, unlike currently, Hulu doesn't delete shows quite as quickly -- a point that had been annoying users of the site. What else do you get? Well, you still get the annoying pre-roll/mid-roll/post-roll commercials, so you're not paying to get rid of those. And... hmm... well, if you pay, Hulu is just slightly less obnoxious about trying to block you from accessing the content on a television (even with a perfectly legitimate setup).

That appears to be it. I'm trying to figure out who thought this was compelling. Basically, for $10/month, Hulu will be slightly less annoying to the average user by not deleting content during the season and maybe kinda sorta letting you access Hulu on your TV if you happen to use the "approved" equipment. Of course, you could also use a system that gets around Hulu's bizarre and pointless TV blocks just as easily, but we'll skip over that for now.

Looks like another lost opportunity. Hulu could have come up with real reasons to buy by actually adding value. Instead, it just focused on being slightly less annoying. Some might not see these as being all that different (doesn't it add value to be less annoying?). That's true, but there is a fundamental difference: anyone can be less annoying without getting people to pay for it. Any business should be striving to be less annoying all the time in their core product. When you set up your subscription service around "we'll be less annoying," you've now given yourself a perverse and dangerous set of incentives. You now have the incentive to be more annoying in your core product in a push to get people to sign up for the less annoying product. Effectively, it's nagware, which may work for some segment of the market, but is not about providing more positive value, but about minimizing negative value. That's not a growth strategy.

Filed Under: business models, hulu, subscriptions, television
Companies: hulu

Is Hulu About To Find Out That There's Always Somewhere Else To Get Content Online?

from the killing-the-goose dept

Wanderlust wrote in to point out the rumors doing the rounds today that Hulu is getting ready to launch a paid subscription service, something that's popped up before. Apparently Hulu is looking to offer the five most recent episodes of a show for free, then will charge $10 a month for access to older episodes. There aren't a ton of details, so it's not clear exactly how the plan will play out. But we can say this: unless Hulu is adding some real value for users, and not just putting currently free content behind a paywall, it's doomed to failure. It's pretty clear that some of Hulu's corporate overlords think all of its content should be behind a paywall. But erecting a paywall will simply drive Hulu users to unauthorized downloads and streams, delivering those content providers absolutely nothing. All too often these paywalls are based on the idea that once users have nowhere else to go, they'll start paying; the reality is, though, there's always somewhere else to go.

Hulu's success thus far has been by attracting users with a good choice of content presented in a good interface, reflecting something of an understanding that the way to compete with free, unauthorized content is to offer users something better. It's already started to undermine some of its success by blocking certain browsers in an attempt to force users to only access its content (and its advertising) through means of which it approves, and the paywall represents yet another step towards replacing a product that's better than unauthorized content with one that's worse. In any case, when online streaming TV shows are already pulling in some high ad rates, does it make any sense at all for Hulu to start throwing up paywalls?

Filed Under: paywall, television
Companies: hulu

Dish Network Lies About Having 200 HD Channels, Hopes Nobody Notices

from the your-customers-can-count-you-know dept

For several years TV carriers have enjoyed bickering over which company has the most HD channels, in part because it creates a debate focused on perceived value -- and steers the conversation away from who offers the lowest prices (or the fact that companies seem to impose annual or bi-annual TV hikes in unison). Carriers only just recently surpassed the 100 HD channel count, so it was surprising this week when Dish Network suddenly and proudly announced that the company was the first to pass the 200 HD channel mark -- insisting "only DISH Network has delivered" on this supposedly-epic promise. Except amusingly, Dish Network didn't bother to include a full list of the channels they added, and when reporters and bloggers on the TV/telecom beat started asking Dish questions, the company started getting a little bit uncomfortable:

"I asked Dish Network's PR department for a list of the 200 HD channels, numbered from 1 to 200. Not too surprising, the company was evasive, saying the 200 HD channels could be found at its web site. However, when I told them I could not locate more than around 130 HD channels listed at DishNetwork.com, the company's PR department got even more evasive -- and started to act a bit strange. At one point, a company spokeswoman said she could give me a breakdown of the 200 HD channels on "background only," meaning I couldn't attribute the information to Dish Network."

As it turns out, Dish's marketing department had gotten creative -- and was suddenly counting 57 different On Demand movie titles as"channels" (the Alvin & The Chipmunks 2 channel, anyone?) and just hoped that nobody would notice. So instead of being seen as the TV operator that offers the most HD channels, Dish Network is now being seen as the TV operator who assumes everybody is stupid, which we'll assume wasn't what the company's PR department was aiming for.

Filed Under: hd, television
Companies: dish network

The Number of People Giving Up TV for the Web Is Slowly Gaining Pace

from the cord-cutting dept

A new report estimates that some 800,000 American households now watch TV only via the Web, as the move to abandon cable, satellite or OTA broadcasts starts to gather pace. This represents a small percentage of the pay TV industry's 101 million subscribers, but the number is expected to double by the end of next year. These are the earliest adopters, though, and they account for just 3 percent of all full-episode online television viewing -- meaning that plenty of people are already supplanting their standard TV viewing with online episodes. It's clear already (and has been for some time) that TV viewers are undertaking a fundamental change in how they want to access and view content. The combination of the Web and DVRs allowing on-demand viewing has made the linear TV channel something of an outdated concept, and at some point, TV providers will need to realize that on-demand shows are now how a growing number of people want to receive their programming.

Cable companies, for one, recognize this to a certain extent, so they've responded with TV Everywhere, a plan to offer programming online. But that plan is doomed to failure because it's being implemented in the hamfisted way you might expect from cable companies, and is set up simply to force people to keep paying for cable if they want to watch shows online. If the plan to capitalize on online viewers is first to force them to keep paying for something they don't want, then by further embracing the "features" of current systems that drive users away, it's hard to see TV companies having a whole lot of success. The key is not to shoehorn the cable model onto the web, but to embrace the positive features enabled by the web and apply them to the rest of their business.

Filed Under: cable, dvr, television, webtv