"You know the idea Mike, you studied it in your first year classes. When there isn't enough money for all of the players in a market to be profitable, some of them will go out of business or get merged into larger, profitable entities."
You have got to be fucking kidding? There are billions of dollars in the music industry and the industry is growing, not shrinking. Profitable is completely subjective. If you take 7 figure salaries of execs and turn them into low 6 figure salaries, you might find there is a lot more profit than anyone imagined.
What happened to the Big Six is more like a "bubble effect". When you artificially inflate the market, eventually the bubble pops.
"So this really was designed to protect consumers against counterfeit websites that were operating from overseas and selling into the US market."
OMG yes. Thank you, thank you. We need protection from counterfeit websites. I hate it when I end up on google1.com or facebooks.com. I only want real websites on my interwebs.
1. protect children
2. drugs are bad
3. porn is bad
4. the terrorists are coming (holy grail so far)
5. cyber bad stuff (could be the next big thing)
6. protect jobs (of wealthy donors, but NEVER say it that way)
7. patriotism (say it and never be specific)
8. when in doubt, use any combination of 1, 4, & 7
Your argument compares the 60's movement to the webkids. There you go again with analog vs digital and then trying to draw conclusions that make sense.
I'm really not sure how you relate drug use to the digital revolution, but it sounds a lot like RIAA methodology (say it and it must be true).
"What is missing in any of these discussions is a clear image of what the world looks like AFTER the proposed revolution."
Wow, is the first response to come to mind. In essence you want to know what the future will look like. We saw MySpace and still no one could see Facebook, we had Altavista and no one saw Google, what about Kickstarter and Spotify, will they survive or will something altogether new come along and replace all of the above?
Let's put that aside for a moment. You ended your post with a social commentary on Poland which completely ignored the content of the manifesto. It makes me wonder if you even read the manifesto of if your brain shut off as soon as you saw webkids.
The point of the manifesto was to show you that the digital revolution already occurred. You seem to be missing the fact that THOUGHT and BEHAVIOR have already been changed by the web already. As much as the IP Industry would like it to be about content, it isn't.
So let me put it in terms that are easy for the analog generation to understand. It's really simple.
Personally, I don't like the "perfect storm" scenario. A. Your computer crashes, B. Your backup file locker gets taken down for piracy, then C. All the downloads you can get from torrents are poor quality rips.
Yay!! The stupid plastic disc saves the day.
OR...
A. There was an accidental fire in your home that ruins your CDs B. Your computer crashes the next day. C. You have no copies in a file locker or on flash drives or in external hard drives, because you relied only on stupid plastic discs that melted.
OR...
A. Lightning strikes you. B. Funeral follows. C. Storage choices become irrelevant.
I would like to extend a HUGE thank you to David Muir and TtfnJohn for helping to clarify some of the things I was trying to say in this post.
WE DON'T CARE about the specifics behind the tech is clearly the message. Just like all the other tech we use everyday and don't care about, lights, cable TV, dishwashers, cars, elevators, etc. All this stuff is integrated into our lives and we use it and expect it to work.
Just like there was a time when A LOT of people would fix their own cars, there was a time when A LOT of people lived in DOS, but the tech keeps on advancing past the point where it makes sense to learn every detail about how to maintain it and the bulk of the users move on to exploring the uses of the tech rather than how to use AND maintain it.
This critical, if subtle, shift in thought on a massive scale is the piece of the puzzle that the content industry is missing. While it may have the strongest effect on the "younger generation" it certainly isn't limited to that generation, and that is the reason that TechDirt is considered to be "ground zero" for the SOPA/PIPA protest. It's because of how the web interconnects us all.
I've said it before, Big Content needs to take some lessons from the Telco Industry. Fight with the players in your own space at the legislative level, not your customers, because they will remember.
Telco didn't like losing the long distance cash cow. They saw it coming, they whined about it, they put up a small fight and held on for as long as they could, and then they let it go for the most part. They didn't like losing profits to VoIP, they whined about and put up a small fight and held on as long as they could and then they let go for the most part. They now face a similar battle on the SMS front which they will lose, and then they will move on to the next battle, but they won't battle to criminalize their customers, because that is the source of their revenue.
That was a pretty amazing nuance you picked up on Marcus about how people perceive storage. That's what the manifesto is all about, a shift in thinking that is far more pervasive than anyone ever imagined. I went online at 24, so I get the feeling of being barely included in the "digital generation".
Two things popped into my head from personal experience. The first was trying to convince a friend to buy a netbook and she told me that she could do everything she needed to do on her smartphone. It dawned on me at that moment that there is a huge population of users that really doesn't see the need for a full on laptop or desktop, and suddenly the whole tablet market made perfect sense.
The other thing was when a friend of mine asked if I had a CD with a program he needed and the first thing that I thought was; who uses CDs anymore? I have flash drives or I know where to download, but I really don't remember the last time I used that CD slot on my laptop.
The music industry wants to sell us CDs, but we don't have anything to play them on. They don't fit in my iPod. Piracy must be the cause of the drop in sales of CDs.
Thanks for the thumbs up, Marcus. Reading that manifesto just clarified how integrated the web is with our lives, almost the same as the telephone before it.
That manifesto explains why the content industry doesn't understand what is going on. They are at war with human nature but think they are fighting against technology.
All I would say to the content industry is that they take a hint from the auto industry. Once the consumers know what the actual cost is on a product, its EXTREMELY hard to convince them to pay what you think they should pay.
Mike, I think your declaration is a bit premature. I argued against your position about the NYT for the same reasons. It's all about the math.
Yes, paywalls are ultimately not the way to go if you want to grow your user base, but in the case of really big newspapers, its a VERY smart bet. They only need a really small percentage of their already large and LOYAL users to buy into their paywall for it to work. So they are betting on the way that a large percentage of people currently think.
With that said, the big newspapers are basically putting a HUGE bet on a losing long game. The digital generation growing up and consuming media has absolutely no loyalty to legacy papers, nor will they adopt them and they probably can't even figure out why anyone would pay for news that is completely free through sooooo many other channels.
So why the paywalls may work well for the big papers for now, they are sure to cause major damage 10 years down the line. We still have to keep in mind that this is the web and somewhere down the line the big papers may come up with some other "great idea" that keeps them relavent.
"..they're charging what the market will bear, which is exactly what free market economics says they should charge."
That's not entirely correct, nor is it how Telco's price their product. It's more correct to say that they are charging what the market will bear, which is exactly what free "marketing" economics says they should charge.
The switch to IP based networks from circuit switched networks effectively struck fear into the hearts of Telco operators because it dramatically reduced the cost of their product. The good news for the Telcos is that consumers don't care about the technical details of how devices/services work, but rather that they work. Bearing that in mind, the Telcos felt no need to inform customers that their networks were now IP based and therefore the services were much cheaper to deliver, so they held onto their pricing schemes as long as possible.
Even when faced with competition from VoIP providers, the Telcos still held on as long as they could and ran marketing campaigns against VoIP providers which bashed the services, even as they slowly rolled out their own VoIP products. Mobile operators, which in the US are mostly owned by fixed operators, and have merged their networks, have been quietly milking the system for as long as they can. The US wireless market is completely against the concept of CPP (calling party pays), and complain that they couldn't profit if only one party pays. Boohoo.
Sms has always been a cash cow for mobile, but fortunately the Telcos are not the RIAA/MPAA and tend to fight their regulatory battles against other players in their space rather than against their customers. With the exception of demonizing customers who tether (steal/pirate), the Telcos tend to allow the market to shift since they know how much profit they've already made by the time the consumer figures out they have been overpaying for years.
"The 'better solutions' still all suck, trading billion dollar industries for million dollar ideas. Sort of like telling Bill Gates that Microsoft should give away windows, because there is a huge market in selling microsoft t-shirts to 'fans'."
So you've never heard of Redhat or Linux. And guess what? Microsoft has heard of them both and isn't betting the farm on it's OS business. What about OpenOffice, ever heard of that? Unlike you, Microsoft actually understands the market that it's in and the free versions that competitors offer, and has been looking more into leveraging its presence on the web for years.
To answer your last question, there is no standard business model that matches the old one in recorded music and there won't be. The technology changed and there isn't a demand for CDs. What the industry fails to recognize is the psychology of radio and TV. We the consumers have been used to those things for free for A LONG time and we don't see much difference on between radio/TV and the web when it comes to consuming media. So why not try that? Theres a business model, sell ads with your content. It's been working for TV and Radio for decades.
Re: We need to stop terrorism on the web... REALLY
If you look on Wikipedia for terrorism in the US, you will find that the KKK is responsible for FAR more acts of terrorism than any group of Islamic fundamentalists.
If you want to censor hate and ignorance on the net, you need to change the name of the project to Take the Net Down Now.
On the post: RIAA's Cary Sherman: We Really Just Want To Give Consumers What We, Er, They Want
Re:
You have got to be fucking kidding? There are billions of dollars in the music industry and the industry is growing, not shrinking. Profitable is completely subjective. If you take 7 figure salaries of execs and turn them into low 6 figure salaries, you might find there is a lot more profit than anyone imagined.
What happened to the Big Six is more like a "bubble effect". When you artificially inflate the market, eventually the bubble pops.
On the post: RIAA's Cary Sherman: We Really Just Want To Give Consumers What We, Er, They Want
Musicians quitting
Sue for millions then relax and make music. It's the new music business model.
On the post: RIAA's Cary Sherman: We Really Just Want To Give Consumers What We, Er, They Want
Wow
OMG yes. Thank you, thank you. We need protection from counterfeit websites. I hate it when I end up on google1.com or facebooks.com. I only want real websites on my interwebs.
On the post: Paypal Pressured To Play Morality Cop And Forces Smashwords To Censor Authors
Re:
Children should not be exposed to such smut.
Although, the zombie diety thing is kinda cool.
On the post: FBI Preaches Dangers Of 'Cybercrime' To The Choir
Next!
1. protect children
2. drugs are bad
3. porn is bad
4. the terrorists are coming (holy grail so far)
5. cyber bad stuff (could be the next big thing)
6. protect jobs (of wealthy donors, but NEVER say it that way)
7. patriotism (say it and never be specific)
8. when in doubt, use any combination of 1, 4, & 7
On the post: Josef Anvil's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re:
I'm really not sure how you relate drug use to the digital revolution, but it sounds a lot like RIAA methodology (say it and it must be true).
On the post: Josef Anvil's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re:
Wow, is the first response to come to mind. In essence you want to know what the future will look like. We saw MySpace and still no one could see Facebook, we had Altavista and no one saw Google, what about Kickstarter and Spotify, will they survive or will something altogether new come along and replace all of the above?
Let's put that aside for a moment. You ended your post with a social commentary on Poland which completely ignored the content of the manifesto. It makes me wonder if you even read the manifesto of if your brain shut off as soon as you saw webkids.
The point of the manifesto was to show you that the digital revolution already occurred. You seem to be missing the fact that THOUGHT and BEHAVIOR have already been changed by the web already. As much as the IP Industry would like it to be about content, it isn't.
So let me put it in terms that are easy for the analog generation to understand. It's really simple.
GOOGLE is now a verb.
On the post: Josef Anvil's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yay!! The stupid plastic disc saves the day.
OR...
A. There was an accidental fire in your home that ruins your CDs B. Your computer crashes the next day. C. You have no copies in a file locker or on flash drives or in external hard drives, because you relied only on stupid plastic discs that melted.
OR...
A. Lightning strikes you. B. Funeral follows. C. Storage choices become irrelevant.
We can play this game all day.
On the post: Josef Anvil's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re:
WE DON'T CARE about the specifics behind the tech is clearly the message. Just like all the other tech we use everyday and don't care about, lights, cable TV, dishwashers, cars, elevators, etc. All this stuff is integrated into our lives and we use it and expect it to work.
Just like there was a time when A LOT of people would fix their own cars, there was a time when A LOT of people lived in DOS, but the tech keeps on advancing past the point where it makes sense to learn every detail about how to maintain it and the bulk of the users move on to exploring the uses of the tech rather than how to use AND maintain it.
This critical, if subtle, shift in thought on a massive scale is the piece of the puzzle that the content industry is missing. While it may have the strongest effect on the "younger generation" it certainly isn't limited to that generation, and that is the reason that TechDirt is considered to be "ground zero" for the SOPA/PIPA protest. It's because of how the web interconnects us all.
I've said it before, Big Content needs to take some lessons from the Telco Industry. Fight with the players in your own space at the legislative level, not your customers, because they will remember.
Telco didn't like losing the long distance cash cow. They saw it coming, they whined about it, they put up a small fight and held on for as long as they could, and then they let it go for the most part. They didn't like losing profits to VoIP, they whined about and put up a small fight and held on as long as they could and then they let go for the most part. They now face a similar battle on the SMS front which they will lose, and then they will move on to the next battle, but they won't battle to criminalize their customers, because that is the source of their revenue.
On the post: Josef Anvil's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Unfortunately the "older generation" became a part of the ANALOG machine because (thanks to Big Content) the digital revolution was not televised.
On the post: Josef Anvil's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re:
"But...but... but.... without copyright and high prices, no one will create quality content."
On the post: Josef Anvil's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re:
Two things popped into my head from personal experience. The first was trying to convince a friend to buy a netbook and she told me that she could do everything she needed to do on her smartphone. It dawned on me at that moment that there is a huge population of users that really doesn't see the need for a full on laptop or desktop, and suddenly the whole tablet market made perfect sense.
The other thing was when a friend of mine asked if I had a CD with a program he needed and the first thing that I thought was; who uses CDs anymore? I have flash drives or I know where to download, but I really don't remember the last time I used that CD slot on my laptop.
The music industry wants to sell us CDs, but we don't have anything to play them on. They don't fit in my iPod. Piracy must be the cause of the drop in sales of CDs.
On the post: Josef Anvil's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re:
That manifesto explains why the content industry doesn't understand what is going on. They are at war with human nature but think they are fighting against technology.
All I would say to the content industry is that they take a hint from the auto industry. Once the consumers know what the actual cost is on a product, its EXTREMELY hard to convince them to pay what you think they should pay.
On the post: Dear Big Newspapers: Keep Putting Up Silly Paywalls And Clear The Internet Field For Us 'Newcomers'
Re: Re: Re: Just a thought
I think we are all getting sick of hearing how EVERYTHING will allow the terrorists to win. I still have no idea what they are winning.
Is there a big fuckin' terrorist prize out there that no one has told us about?
On the post: Dear Big Newspapers: Keep Putting Up Silly Paywalls And Clear The Internet Field For Us 'Newcomers'
Long game
Yes, paywalls are ultimately not the way to go if you want to grow your user base, but in the case of really big newspapers, its a VERY smart bet. They only need a really small percentage of their already large and LOYAL users to buy into their paywall for it to work. So they are betting on the way that a large percentage of people currently think.
With that said, the big newspapers are basically putting a HUGE bet on a losing long game. The digital generation growing up and consuming media has absolutely no loyalty to legacy papers, nor will they adopt them and they probably can't even figure out why anyone would pay for news that is completely free through sooooo many other channels.
So why the paywalls may work well for the big papers for now, they are sure to cause major damage 10 years down the line. We still have to keep in mind that this is the web and somewhere down the line the big papers may come up with some other "great idea" that keeps them relavent.
On the post: Mobile Carriers Don't Want To Give Up SMS Without A Fight
Re: Not quite free
That's not entirely correct, nor is it how Telco's price their product. It's more correct to say that they are charging what the market will bear, which is exactly what free "marketing" economics says they should charge.
The switch to IP based networks from circuit switched networks effectively struck fear into the hearts of Telco operators because it dramatically reduced the cost of their product. The good news for the Telcos is that consumers don't care about the technical details of how devices/services work, but rather that they work. Bearing that in mind, the Telcos felt no need to inform customers that their networks were now IP based and therefore the services were much cheaper to deliver, so they held onto their pricing schemes as long as possible.
Even when faced with competition from VoIP providers, the Telcos still held on as long as they could and ran marketing campaigns against VoIP providers which bashed the services, even as they slowly rolled out their own VoIP products. Mobile operators, which in the US are mostly owned by fixed operators, and have merged their networks, have been quietly milking the system for as long as they can. The US wireless market is completely against the concept of CPP (calling party pays), and complain that they couldn't profit if only one party pays. Boohoo.
Sms has always been a cash cow for mobile, but fortunately the Telcos are not the RIAA/MPAA and tend to fight their regulatory battles against other players in their space rather than against their customers. With the exception of demonizing customers who tether (steal/pirate), the Telcos tend to allow the market to shift since they know how much profit they've already made by the time the consumer figures out they have been overpaying for years.
On the post: WaPo's Kaplan Scolded For Demanding $300 From Student Trying To Sell One Of Its Books On eBay
Re: Where are the BAR Associations?
On the post: Who Cares If Piracy Is 'Wrong' If Stopping It Is Impossible And Innovating Provides Better Solutions?
Re:
So you've never heard of Redhat or Linux. And guess what? Microsoft has heard of them both and isn't betting the farm on it's OS business. What about OpenOffice, ever heard of that? Unlike you, Microsoft actually understands the market that it's in and the free versions that competitors offer, and has been looking more into leveraging its presence on the web for years.
To answer your last question, there is no standard business model that matches the old one in recorded music and there won't be. The technology changed and there isn't a demand for CDs. What the industry fails to recognize is the psychology of radio and TV. We the consumers have been used to those things for free for A LONG time and we don't see much difference on between radio/TV and the web when it comes to consuming media. So why not try that? Theres a business model, sell ads with your content. It's been working for TV and Radio for decades.
On the post: EU Censorship Plan With A Cheesy Name: The Clean IT Project
Re: We need to stop terrorism on the web... REALLY
If you want to censor hate and ignorance on the net, you need to change the name of the project to Take the Net Down Now.
On the post: EU Censorship Plan With A Cheesy Name: The Clean IT Project
We need to stop terrorism on the web... REALLY
I just wonder why they never bring up this site....
http://kkk.com/
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