Showing posts with label media industries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media industries. Show all posts

07 July 2010

Exploring Entitlement Economics

Bradley M. Kuhn has a thought-provoking post with the title "Proprietary Software Licensing Produces No New Value In Society". Here's a key section:

I've often been paid for programming, but I've been paid directly for the hours I spent programming. I never even considered it reasonable to be paid again for programming I did in the past. How is that fair, just, or quite frankly, even necessary? If I get a job building a house, I can't get paid every day someone uses that house. Indeed, even if I built the house, I shouldn't get a royalty paid every time the house is resold to a new owner. Why should software work any differently? Indeed, there's even an argument that software, since it's so much more trivial to copy than a house, should be available gratis to everyone once it's written the first time.

He then goes on to point out:

Thus, this line of reasoning gives me yet another reason to oppose proprietary software: proprietary licensing is simply a valueless transaction. It creates a burden on society and gives no benefit, other than a financial one to those granted the monopoly over that particular software program. Unfortunately, there nevertheless remain many who want that level of control, because one fact cannot be denied: the profits are larger.

For example, Mårten Mikos recently argued in favor of these sorts of large profits. He claims that to "benefit massively from Open Source" (i.e., to get really rich), business models like “Open Core” are necessary. Mårten's argument, and indeed most pro-Open-Core arguments, rely on this following fundamental assumption: for FLOSS to be legitimate, it must allow for the same level of profits as proprietary software. This assumption, in my view, is faulty. It's always true that you can make bigger profits by ignoring morality. Factories can easily make more money by completely ignoring environmental issues; strip mining is always very profitable, after all. However, as a society, we've decided that the environment is worth protecting, so we have rules that do limit profit maximization because a more important goal is served.

This analysis is cognate with my recent post about the absence of billion-dollar turnover open source companies: the fact is, as a pure-play free software outfit, you just can't make so much money as you can with proprietary software, because you generally have to sell scarce things like people's time, and that doesn't scale.

But the implications of this point are much wider, I think.

As Kuhn emphasies:

I'll just never be fully comfortable with the idea that workers should get money for work they already did. Work is only valuable if it produces something new that didn't exist in the world before the work started, or solves a problem that had yet to be solved. Proprietary licensing and financial bets on market derivatives have something troubling in common: they can make a profit for someone without requiring that someone to do any new work. Any time a business moves away from actually producing something new of value for a real human being, I'll always question whether the business remains legitimate.

This idea of getting money for work already done is precisely how copyright is regarded these days. It's not enough for a creator to be paid once for his or her work: they want to be paid every time it is performed or copies made of performances.

So ingrained is this idea that anyone suggesting the contrary - like that doughty young Eleanor - is regarded as some kind of alien from another planet, and is mocked by those whose livelihoods depend upon this kind of entitlement economics.

But just as open source has cut down the fat profits of proprietary software companies, so eventually will the exorbitant profits of the media industry be cut back to reasonable levels based on how much work people do - because, as Kuhn notes, there really is no justification for anything more.

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26 August 2009

An Old Train of Thought

An analogy I and others frequently use in discussing the media industries' refusal to consider new business models is that of the transition to the motor car, particularly with reference to obsolete accoutrements for horse carriages. But I've just read an article from TorrentFreak that links to a rather interesting Wikipedia page about the Locomotive Act - the one that required a person to walk in front of a car with a red flag. It had this interesting paragraph:

Under pressure from motor car enthusiasts, including Coventry manufacturer Harry J. Lawson, the government introduced the Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which became known as The Emancipation Act, which defined a new category of vehicle light locomotives, which were vehicles under 3 tons unladen weight. These vehicles were exempt from the 3 crew member rule, and were subject to the higher 14 mph (22 km/h) speed limit.[5] In celebration of the Emancipation Act Lawson organised the first London to Brighton run.

The relaxation of usage restrictions eased the way for the development of the British motor industry.

Nearly one and a half centuries later the motoring journalist and author L. J. K. Setright speculated that the Locomotive Acts were put in place to suppress motor car development in the United Kingdom, because of the financial interests that some members of government and other establishment personalities had in the development and viability of the railway industry.

So maybe a better analogy is motor cars and railways....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

12 February 2008

Three Strikes and the Media Industry is Out

So the music and film industries want to follow Sarko's daft plan:

People who illegally download films and music will be cut off from the internet under new legislative proposals to be unveiled next week.

Internet service providers (ISPs) will be legally required to take action against users who access pirated material, The Times has learnt.

Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their internet contract if caught a third time, under the most likely option to emerge from discussions about the new law.

Broadband companies who fail to enforce the “three-strikes” regime would be prosecuted and suspected customers’ details could be made available to the courts. The Government has yet to decide if information on offenders should be shared between ISPs.

Well, if they want three strikes and out, try these for size:

Strike One

The music and then film industries failed to recognise that digital downloads were the future. Instead of embracing this incredibly efficient way of distributing content, the industries have fought it tooth and nail. Since there was no legal way to download materials, users were forced to turn to alternative sources.

Strike Two

When it became blindingly obvious that users wanted digital files, the media industry eventually provided them - in the hideously hobbled form of DRM'd formats. Which meant, once more, that people who wanted content that they could use on all their computers and players were forced to turn to other sources.

Strike Three

The present move. Leaving aside the civil liberties angle - the fact that ISPs become the media industries' spies - and that the UK government proposes propping up a dying business model for no other reason than the said industries demand it, even when there is evidence that sharing music *increases* sales of media - it won't work. The instant this becomes law, the number of sites offering encrypted downloads, which are impossible to check in transit, will mushroom, just as decentralised P2P systems sprang up once Napster was nobbled.

The upside is that average user will probably start using encrypting routinely, thus putting the kibosh on Echelon's easy access to everyone's Internet traffic.

Update: Moreover:

UK government proposals to make ISPs take action against the estimated six million users who access pirated online material every year could prompt an explosion in Wi-Fi hijacking, experts warned today.