There are a lot of times I see an add for a movie and think, "I want to see that." Almost always that means Netflix or a very rare visit to the theater. With my short attention span, the 28 day gap is usually enough to let me forget about wanting to see a movie when it shows up on Netflix. A longer delay probably means that I will be even less likely to remember a Warner film, so I will a movie made by some other studio and let them earn a bit of royalty.
On a different thread, I wonder how much Blockbuster pays Times-Warner for skipping the delay. I also wonder how long a withering Blockbuster will be around to pay a premium for same-day releases.
That doesn't help much. Stations have to pay the fees even if they only play music from artists who release their music for free. It might get you around some of the RIAA restrictions on music, but the fees will still be there.
The marketplace always fills a vacuum. When they government or an oligopoly gets too far out of line with the natural market legal and illegal alternatives will be found.
I worked in city government for a long time. I saw two good examples of the competitive bid process working.
We had always bought parking meters from the same company. The traffic department had all kinds of reasons for only using one company. Instead of ordering meters once a year they ordered a few every week in order to stay below bid requirements. They assured everyone that the we were getting a better-than-market price because the company knew we were loyal customers. A new City Manager came on board and insisted that they put out a competitive bid. We ended up buying the same meters from the same company, but the bid prices was 40% of the per-meter price we had been paying when they knew they did not have competition.
The other example was IT. The IT shop was hard-core HP. We needed a Unix box that was going to be located in the machine room, but would be independent of any other system. HP gave us a quote, and the IT Director assured us that for budgeting purposes we could count on their bid price matching the quote because that is what they always did. The specs that IT put together effectively locked us into the HP quote. My boss inserted a paragraph saying functional equivalents or better would be accepted. The HP rep was shocked when gave the contract to IBM. After the fact the IT director told us that he had not realized how much HP had taken his loyalty for granted. The next set of bids that they put in went to HP, but at much lower prices than he expected, and they were suddenly getting all kinds of offers for free services from HP. We also got a new sales rep.
>>They're acting a like bratty children who throw a tantrum...
Basically they are bratty children throwing a tantrum. Except that they are now approaching 18 years old and are afraid they are going to get thrown out of the house.
>>A murky area can appear when people use personal accounts to post company tweets, simple solution is: don't.
I think that is good advice for most people, but it doesn't work well for people like reporters especially if they are nationally known. In that case the person and the company message are blurred. When a company hires a reporter that reporter's credibility and reputation is a very important part of what they are hiring. The reporter probably needs to tweet under their own name as part of the credibility package. Hiding behind a program name isn't as effective as standing under their own name. The flip side of this for the reporter is that they can blow their credibility and entire career with their tweets.
In the Sanchez situation I think the account in question included both Shanchez's name and the name of the program, which probably makes it more of a company account in my mind. If Sanchez moves on to another network, will he have the same program name? I would imagine that CNN has the program name trademarked. On the other hand, it was probably Sanchez that people were following, so I would think that the account itself has relatively little value to CNN except for a post or two encouraging people to watch Sanchez's replacement. I think in the case of a mixed name account it should just have a "goodbye" post and then be canceled.
I suppose it is expect a reasonable solution to this. Like, a Twitter account in the name of a person belongs to the person, and an account using a company name or trademark belongs to the company or trademark holder.
A person's name is important to them. If they go to another employer they take their own name. If employers don't want famous employees to take their followers with them when they leave, then the company should set up the account and require the employee to use it for professional purposes.
You still didn't answer the basic question. How is Hadopi going to increase music and movie sales?
Perhaps you just want revenge on the people you think destroyed your business. There are two problems with this line of thought. First, the free downloaders are not the ones who destroyed your business. You can look within your own corporate suites to find the guilty parties. Second, revenge is very expensive. Few businesses can afford revenge because it means taking a huge hit in longterm viability. The big labels are already in trouble and can't afford too many more big hits. In this case the music industry is essentially admitting defeat and announcing plans to go out of business entirely. The only question is whether they will manage to take the movie industry down with them.
What kind of business model is based on an objective of making 50,000 customers angry every day? Even if the strategy is 100% effective in shutting down file sharing will it create new CD or movie sales? There is lots of evidence that illegal downloaders also buy a lot of music. How many thousand of those customers swear off ever buying a CD or movie again?
For that matter, how many political parties can survive a system that angers 50,000 voters a day?
>>Do you think of what the french are doing, subsidizing half the cost of music will work to retrain the youth of the nation to buy music? (big ole snicker - No)
They are not training kids to buy music. They are teaching them that they paid for the music in the subsidy, and that they now feel entitled to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Hadopi is teaching them to encrypt their internet connection and to spoof IP addresses.
>>Or is it a total "FAIL"?
I don't think "FAIL" is a strong enough word.
It might prop up the businesses that are collecting the money, but those businesses will have less and less to do with producing the music that the consumers are looking for.
Ian Port is essentially saying that the average high school student has a better understanding of economics than most business leaders. And, unfortunately, he is correct.
CEO's know the terms that economists use, and they know how to throw around those terms in an argument or when talking to a reporter. However, they have no feel for what the terms mean or how the underlying economic principles work.
If you want someone who actually understands economics, talk to a modern teenager. I work with older teens and today's kids are really sharp about some things. Unlike kids 20 years ago, these folks understand economics at a gut level. It doesn't matter at all what whether ACTA gets adopted or DCMA safe harbors get repealed. These kids will kill the recording industry in its current form. It is simply irrelevant to them, and they are not going to spend more money than they have to in order to get music they like.
If the recording industry is going to survive its leaders are going to have to understand economics as well as these kids do. People in their teens and twenties will spend money on music, but they are not spending $15 for a plastic disk, and they are not paying $10 for a music download. The only music businesses that will be left standing five and ten years from now are the ones who figure out what young people are willing to spend their money on.
We are talking music here, but the movie and gaming industry should be taking notes.
Making money off mobile is the current fad. It is pretty late in the cycle, and by the time AP gets anything in place the platform will have been milked dry and consumers will have moved on. Major players always seem to base their plans on the assumption that the current market conditiions will last forever. They are like hopeful goldminers that showed up in 1850 instead of 1849. By the time they got there it was too late. AP should be trying to position itself to be there at the start of the new opportunities, not at the end of the current one.
Besides, the proposal would itself probably kill off mobile as a news platform or at least encourage consumers to find a way around AP sources.
On the post: Warner Bros. So Thrilled With Netflix 28-Day Delays, It Wants To Have Longer Delays
Gives me time to forget the ads
On a different thread, I wonder how much Blockbuster pays Times-Warner for skipping the delay. I also wonder how long a withering Blockbuster will be around to pay a premium for same-day releases.
On the post: How The DMCA Is Restricting Online Radio In Ridiculous Ways
Re:
On the post: How The DMCA Is Restricting Online Radio In Ridiculous Ways
Re:
On the post: Google Sues The US Government For Only Considering Microsoft Solutions
Competition is good
We had always bought parking meters from the same company. The traffic department had all kinds of reasons for only using one company. Instead of ordering meters once a year they ordered a few every week in order to stay below bid requirements. They assured everyone that the we were getting a better-than-market price because the company knew we were loyal customers. A new City Manager came on board and insisted that they put out a competitive bid. We ended up buying the same meters from the same company, but the bid prices was 40% of the per-meter price we had been paying when they knew they did not have competition.
The other example was IT. The IT shop was hard-core HP. We needed a Unix box that was going to be located in the machine room, but would be independent of any other system. HP gave us a quote, and the IT Director assured us that for budgeting purposes we could count on their bid price matching the quote because that is what they always did. The specs that IT put together effectively locked us into the HP quote. My boss inserted a paragraph saying functional equivalents or better would be accepted. The HP rep was shocked when gave the contract to IBM. After the fact the IT director told us that he had not realized how much HP had taken his loyalty for granted. The next set of bids that they put in went to HP, but at much lower prices than he expected, and they were suddenly getting all kinds of offers for free services from HP. We also got a new sales rep.
On the post: Surprise: Justice Department Says Isolated Genes Should Not Be Patentable
Re: Re: "...which makes perfect sense..."
On the post: Surprise: Justice Department Says Isolated Genes Should Not Be Patentable
Re: "...which makes perfect sense..."
On the post: Surprise: Justice Department Says Isolated Genes Should Not Be Patentable
Re: "...which makes perfect sense..."
On the post: Texas Supreme Court Cites The Wisdom Of Spock On Star Trek
Spock revisited
Do the prejudices of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the business models of the few?
On the post: If Spotify Is Making Labels So Much Money In Europe, Why Are They Still Demanding Crazy Upfronts In The US?
Re: I have no idea
Basically they are bratty children throwing a tantrum. Except that they are now approaching 18 years old and are afraid they are going to get thrown out of the house.
On the post: For All The Cyberwar Talk, Turns Out There Have Been Fewer Attacks On The Pentagon's Network
From the Rampantly Paranoid Department:
On the post: Bogus 'Free' MP3 Download Site Going Away, Blaming Blogs For Wanting To Ruin Its Popularity
Blame
On the post: Who 'Owns' A Twitter Account: Employer Or Employee?
Re: Re: Reasonable solution
I think that is good advice for most people, but it doesn't work well for people like reporters especially if they are nationally known. In that case the person and the company message are blurred. When a company hires a reporter that reporter's credibility and reputation is a very important part of what they are hiring. The reporter probably needs to tweet under their own name as part of the credibility package. Hiding behind a program name isn't as effective as standing under their own name. The flip side of this for the reporter is that they can blow their credibility and entire career with their tweets.
In the Sanchez situation I think the account in question included both Shanchez's name and the name of the program, which probably makes it more of a company account in my mind. If Sanchez moves on to another network, will he have the same program name? I would imagine that CNN has the program name trademarked. On the other hand, it was probably Sanchez that people were following, so I would think that the account itself has relatively little value to CNN except for a post or two encouraging people to watch Sanchez's replacement. I think in the case of a mixed name account it should just have a "goodbye" post and then be canceled.
On the post: Who 'Owns' A Twitter Account: Employer Or Employee?
Reasonable solution
A person's name is important to them. If they go to another employer they take their own name. If employers don't want famous employees to take their followers with them when they leave, then the company should set up the account and require the employee to use it for professional purposes.
On the post: Local News Website Says You Need To Pay To Read Its Stories, Says It's Collecting Visitor IPs To Sue
EULA
On the bright side, they haven't patented eliminating the click.
On the post: Hadopi Already Up To Sending Out 25,000 'First Strike' Notices Per Day
Re: Re: 50K angry customers a day
Perhaps you just want revenge on the people you think destroyed your business. There are two problems with this line of thought. First, the free downloaders are not the ones who destroyed your business. You can look within your own corporate suites to find the guilty parties. Second, revenge is very expensive. Few businesses can afford revenge because it means taking a huge hit in longterm viability. The big labels are already in trouble and can't afford too many more big hits. In this case the music industry is essentially admitting defeat and announcing plans to go out of business entirely. The only question is whether they will manage to take the movie industry down with them.
On the post: Lobbying Group Issues Takedown For Parody Political Ads By Student Group
Civil Rights
On the post: Hadopi Already Up To Sending Out 25,000 'First Strike' Notices Per Day
50K angry customers a day
For that matter, how many political parties can survive a system that angers 50,000 voters a day?
On the post: Debunking The Claim That Giving Away Music 'Devalues' It
Re: Re: Understanding Economics
They are not training kids to buy music. They are teaching them that they paid for the music in the subsidy, and that they now feel entitled to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Hadopi is teaching them to encrypt their internet connection and to spoof IP addresses.
>>Or is it a total "FAIL"?
I don't think "FAIL" is a strong enough word.
It might prop up the businesses that are collecting the money, but those businesses will have less and less to do with producing the music that the consumers are looking for.
On the post: Debunking The Claim That Giving Away Music 'Devalues' It
Understanding Economics
CEO's know the terms that economists use, and they know how to throw around those terms in an argument or when talking to a reporter. However, they have no feel for what the terms mean or how the underlying economic principles work.
If you want someone who actually understands economics, talk to a modern teenager. I work with older teens and today's kids are really sharp about some things. Unlike kids 20 years ago, these folks understand economics at a gut level. It doesn't matter at all what whether ACTA gets adopted or DCMA safe harbors get repealed. These kids will kill the recording industry in its current form. It is simply irrelevant to them, and they are not going to spend more money than they have to in order to get music they like.
If the recording industry is going to survive its leaders are going to have to understand economics as well as these kids do. People in their teens and twenties will spend money on music, but they are not spending $15 for a plastic disk, and they are not paying $10 for a music download. The only music businesses that will be left standing five and ten years from now are the ones who figure out what young people are willing to spend their money on.
We are talking music here, but the movie and gaming industry should be taking notes.
On the post: AP Wants To Become The ASCAP Of News
hanging their hopes on the latest fad
Besides, the proposal would itself probably kill off mobile as a news platform or at least encourage consumers to find a way around AP sources.
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