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"The fact is, if it's trivial to clone data to the point that regular users can do it (Napster, etc), the business model for online rental vanishes." Yes, and

"The fact is, if it's trivial to clone data to the point that regular users can do it (Napster, etc), the business model for online rental vanishes." Yes, and if it is trivial to send photos without first developing them, the business model for Kodak will vanish! Why, if it were trivial for people to move a carriage from point A to point B, the business model for buggy whip makers might vanish! Why should we be concerned about obsolete business models failing? Why should we be concerned about inherently bad business models, like "renting" bits, vanishing? We need to eliminate anti-circumvention laws as a first step, and then start talking about the possibility of completely upending the copyright system and replacing it with something that makes sense now that we have the Internet.

JumpCrisscross 14y ago
Obsolescence requires an old as well as a new. We have an old. But no clear new. Thus no obsolescence, just have a situation that doesn't work. >"Why should we be concerned about inherently bad business models...vanishing?" Because they may provide us something of value, e.g. content we'd rather have today than in ten years after some new distributor has figured his model out. DRM could be considered a patch job, but no more than, say, land rights. Some societies, e.g. the Native Americans, had no concept of land rights. The U.S. likes strictly defined personal property. The British, and many Nordic countries, preserve a public "right to roam" to uncultivated land, public or private [1]. The balance can vary from situation to situation, but takes experimentation and an open mind to find. That is why we should care - because this is an active debate playing out in the twin forums of politics and markets. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_roam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_roam
TravisLS 14y ago
I don't think it's a given that this model is inherently bad, obsolete, or evil. Unlike say, horses and buggies, it's not clear that there's a superior alternative here. In the case of video in particular, high quality content is still very expensive to produce. By removing the ability for movie / tv studios to make money from content, the likely outcome is we simply don't have big budget movies or high quality TV anymore. Aside from all of the reasons why the businesses might want their revenue streams to stay intact, most consumers probably want it as well.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "Unlike say, horses and buggies, it's not clear that there's a superior alternative here." "Better" is subjective. I think a system is "better" when it ensures that people can access entertainment regardless of their income, all things being equal. Could we monetize entertainment without sacrificing such things? Surely we can. We can have serials, for example, such that the next installment will not be released to anyone until enough money is raised. We can make movie theaters an experience worth paying for, rather than focusing on the movie itself. This same sort of argument -- "we have no alternatives!" -- was made when automobiles rendered animal-based transportation obsolete. Pedestrians might be struck by cars! The speeds are too dangerous! They are so much noisier than horses! Yet in the end, the car was "better" than the horse, and now we face riots when gasoline becomes scarce. I think the same is true of the Internet, when it comes to copyrights, photography, post offices, and so forth. When I was a child, photography meant film, and you had to drop film off somewhere to have your pictures developed. Then digital cameras came out, and for all the complaints about quality (remember when 1 megapixel was a big deal?), the film camera business fell apart. It was not just that we had digital cameras, it was that digital photographs could be transmitted to anyone with an Internet connection at no real cost -- whether you sent one photo, or a hundred photos. Is it clear that digital is "better" than film? It all depends on your definition of "better." Film has more pixels at lower cost. Digital still won, and it wins even when the pictures are taken using cell phone cameras. Digital present society with a new set of problems to deal with, like the ease with which pornography can be made (middle school girls can be tricked into taking pornographic photos of themselves and sending those photos to men on the Internet, etc.), but nobody claimed it was a panacea; it just solves the problems people actually care about better than its predecessors. The same argument applies to entertainment. People do not really care about quality; the continued popularity of camrips, and the continued popularity of low-end, unoriginal movie franchises should be proof enough. People want entertainment quickly, they want no restrictions on when and where they can watch it, and they want to be able to go into work the day after a show aired and laugh about it with their coworkers. My mother does not care about copyrights or DRM laws when she rips DVDs and copies the rip to her tablet -- she just wants her favorite shows on her most portable computer when Internet service is not available. Copyright is obsolete because it encourages a system that makes all of the above expensive or difficult, and because there is another system that makes all of the above less expensive and less difficult. Cars get people from point A to point B faster and with less expense than horses; nobody cared about the noise, pollution, or danger. The same is true of copyrights: nobody really worries about the risks copyright lobbyists whine about when they download a torrent, because copyrights don't deliver what people really want nearly as well as the Internet does.
paulhauggis 14y ago
Do you believe in unions then? Unions are pretty much the same thing. They inflate wages and force companies to pay workers a wage that would otherwise be much less. Unions have also prevented some jobs from being automated (IE: making them obsolete). "start talking about the possibility of completely upending the copyright system and replacing it with something that makes sense now that we have the Internet." If a company pours millions of dollars into something that many people enjoy, why shouldn't their works be protected? You talk about changing the system and I feel like what you really want is no protection for content creators.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >Do you believe in unions then? Unions are pretty much the same thing. They inflate wages and force companies to pay workers a wage that would otherwise be much less. That's the neoliberals or naive american's view on unions. People all over the world would beg to differ. Unions restore (some) of the imbalance in power between the employeer and the individual worker. The protect people that need a job to feed their families against blackmail from those offering a job, and force companies to pay a wage that would otherwise be much less (at the threshold of substinence, if there weren't any unions around, such as it was in the 19th century). Unions have also won many cherished rights, from prohibiting child labour, to the 8-hour work week, to work safety measures...
  - Kliment 14y ago
    > to the 8-hour work week You're a couple deacdes early with that
    - coldtea 14y ago
      LOL, missed that!
- betterunix 14y ago
  "If a company pours millions of dollars into something that many people enjoy, why shouldn't their works be protected?" Kodak poured millions of dollars into the film development system. Why shouldn't they have their revenue stream protected too? Why not freeze the progress of technology to ensure that no business ever becomes obsolete? We had entertainment before copyright. We will still have it afterwards.
edanm 14y ago
We like content. There is a business model that (most people agree) makes it so more content is created. You are saying "why should we care about that business model being wiped out" [1], and the reason is because most people agree that that business model makes it so more content is created, which is what we want. To convince us that we in fact shouldn't care, convince us either that: 1. Content (of similar quantity and quality) will in fact still be created, in spite of that business model dying. You're not likely to convince people of this, I believe. 2. Content (of similar quantity and quality) will in fact sill be created, because another business model will take its place. [1]: Not a direct quote.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "Content (of similar quantity and quality) will in fact still be created, in spite of that business model dying. You're not likely to convince people of this, I believe." "Content" was created long before copyrights. Technology may have changed and opened the door to new kinds of entertainment, but if you are looking for an example of how entertainment might be created in the absence of copyright, you need look no further than a history book. How will movies be monetized? Maybe we need movie theaters to deliver a positive experience we cannot easily duplicate in our homes. Maybe we will see an increase in serials -- you do not get to see the next installment of a popular show until a certain amount of money is paid. Maybe there is some radically different way to monetize movies that neither you nor I are creative enough to come up with. As long as we cling to copyright, however, we will not only never see such things, but we will continue to see great systems and technologies killed in the name of copyright enforcement. "Content (of similar quantity and quality)" I think we can strive for something of better quality than what we see today. The majority of today's mainstream music and movies are not particularly high quality -- formulaic plots, formulaic melodies and arrangements, a heavy focus on special effects to make up for bad storytelling and unoriginal music, and a general lack of creativity.
  - edanm 14y ago
    If you want to convince me, show me where in history you have examples of content being created without copyrights, of the same quantity/quality. Obviously we'll have to normalize your data to the size of the population in the past, not to mention the amount of free time they had available. And if you are really interested in this topic, I suggest you read about the history of copyrights. For example, in the 1800's there was a large debate about the values of copyrights in the British Parliament, which echoes a lot of the same arguments made today (even including a prediction of the kind of piracy we have today). One of the non-obvious points raised is that a model like you describe, e.g. most "normal" jobs where you get paid for your time/output, has some very undesirable properties. Specifically, not allowing for the "misunderstood genius" of people, but solely promoting popular content. The same kind of popular content you say is not of high quality, and which makes up a large proportion of content today, but definitely not everything. I'm not saying there aren't other answers out there. I'm saying that dismissively saying "look at history" ironically ignores history - the systems in place today are the result of a lot of discoure on these subjects throughout history, and saying "let's just scratch what there is and start over" is about as smart as trashing a large software project and recoding from scratch. [1] [1] For non-programmers: this is widely considered a very wrong thing to do.
rayiner 14y ago
All business models break down without law. You've just decided which laws you like and don't and which business models you like and don't. I disagree that renting bits is evil. I think selling out peoples privacy is evil. That's what has arisen instead because its impractical to rent bits. We're just arguing relative moral preferences at that point.
macspoofing 14y ago
You cannot possibly be that dense. Though copyright laws need reform, there is 0 chance of completely dismantling them. Not only because there is no political willpower to do something like this, but also because it's not the right approach, and nobody actually wants something like this - not content creators (from software shops, to musicians to music studios), and not regular consumers. Framing your discussion in that corner, makes it easy to just completely dismiss your point of view because there is little value in it.
lukifer 14y ago
I'm not arguing that every business model deserves to survive; I'm talking about the specific case of consuming audio/video content without keeping it. Renting bits does seem antiquated, yet it's a type of transaction that both consumers and creators enjoy. Obviously in a perfect world, DRM would be illegal (or at least, frowned upon by consumers), and all content would be available in a globally accessible digital library that magically compensated creators. But that would represent a huge shift in economics which would have to take place at the level of law and public policy, not the technology used to facilitate the transaction. The situation is analogous to abstinence vs. sex education for young people: if they're going to do the wrong thing (DRM/promiscuity), they should at least do the wrong thing the right way (web standards/using protection).

JumpCrisscross 14y ago

Obsolescence requires an old as well as a new. We have an old. But no clear new. Thus no obsolescence, just have a situation that doesn't work. >"Why should we be concerned about inherently bad business models...vanishing?" Because they may provide us something of value, e.g. content we'd rather have today than in ten years after some new distributor has figured his model out. DRM could be considered a patch job, but no more than, say, land rights. Some societies, e.g. the Native Americans, had no concept of land rights. The U.S. likes strictly defined personal property. The British, and many Nordic countries, preserve a public "right to roam" to uncultivated land, public or private [1]. The balance can vary from situation to situation, but takes experimentation and an open mind to find. That is why we should care - because this is an active debate playing out in the twin forums of politics and markets. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_roam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_roam

TravisLS 14y ago

I don't think it's a given that this model is inherently bad, obsolete, or evil. Unlike say, horses and buggies, it's not clear that there's a superior alternative here. In the case of video in particular, high quality content is still very expensive to produce. By removing the ability for movie / tv studios to make money from content, the likely outcome is we simply don't have big budget movies or high quality TV anymore. Aside from all of the reasons why the businesses might want their revenue streams to stay intact, most consumers probably want it as well.

betterunix 14y ago
"Unlike say, horses and buggies, it's not clear that there's a superior alternative here." "Better" is subjective. I think a system is "better" when it ensures that people can access entertainment regardless of their income, all things being equal. Could we monetize entertainment without sacrificing such things? Surely we can. We can have serials, for example, such that the next installment will not be released to anyone until enough money is raised. We can make movie theaters an experience worth paying for, rather than focusing on the movie itself. This same sort of argument -- "we have no alternatives!" -- was made when automobiles rendered animal-based transportation obsolete. Pedestrians might be struck by cars! The speeds are too dangerous! They are so much noisier than horses! Yet in the end, the car was "better" than the horse, and now we face riots when gasoline becomes scarce. I think the same is true of the Internet, when it comes to copyrights, photography, post offices, and so forth. When I was a child, photography meant film, and you had to drop film off somewhere to have your pictures developed. Then digital cameras came out, and for all the complaints about quality (remember when 1 megapixel was a big deal?), the film camera business fell apart. It was not just that we had digital cameras, it was that digital photographs could be transmitted to anyone with an Internet connection at no real cost -- whether you sent one photo, or a hundred photos. Is it clear that digital is "better" than film? It all depends on your definition of "better." Film has more pixels at lower cost. Digital still won, and it wins even when the pictures are taken using cell phone cameras. Digital present society with a new set of problems to deal with, like the ease with which pornography can be made (middle school girls can be tricked into taking pornographic photos of themselves and sending those photos to men on the Internet, etc.), but nobody claimed it was a panacea; it just solves the problems people actually care about better than its predecessors. The same argument applies to entertainment. People do not really care about quality; the continued popularity of camrips, and the continued popularity of low-end, unoriginal movie franchises should be proof enough. People want entertainment quickly, they want no restrictions on when and where they can watch it, and they want to be able to go into work the day after a show aired and laugh about it with their coworkers. My mother does not care about copyrights or DRM laws when she rips DVDs and copies the rip to her tablet -- she just wants her favorite shows on her most portable computer when Internet service is not available. Copyright is obsolete because it encourages a system that makes all of the above expensive or difficult, and because there is another system that makes all of the above less expensive and less difficult. Cars get people from point A to point B faster and with less expense than horses; nobody cared about the noise, pollution, or danger. The same is true of copyrights: nobody really worries about the risks copyright lobbyists whine about when they download a torrent, because copyrights don't deliver what people really want nearly as well as the Internet does.

paulhauggis 14y ago

Do you believe in unions then? Unions are pretty much the same thing. They inflate wages and force companies to pay workers a wage that would otherwise be much less. Unions have also prevented some jobs from being automated (IE: making them obsolete). "start talking about the possibility of completely upending the copyright system and replacing it with something that makes sense now that we have the Internet." If a company pours millions of dollars into something that many people enjoy, why shouldn't their works be protected? You talk about changing the system and I feel like what you really want is no protection for content creators.

coldtea 14y ago
>Do you believe in unions then? Unions are pretty much the same thing. They inflate wages and force companies to pay workers a wage that would otherwise be much less. That's the neoliberals or naive american's view on unions. People all over the world would beg to differ. Unions restore (some) of the imbalance in power between the employeer and the individual worker. The protect people that need a job to feed their families against blackmail from those offering a job, and force companies to pay a wage that would otherwise be much less (at the threshold of substinence, if there weren't any unions around, such as it was in the 19th century). Unions have also won many cherished rights, from prohibiting child labour, to the 8-hour work week, to work safety measures...
- Kliment 14y ago
  > to the 8-hour work week You're a couple deacdes early with that
  - coldtea 14y ago
    LOL, missed that!
betterunix 14y ago
"If a company pours millions of dollars into something that many people enjoy, why shouldn't their works be protected?" Kodak poured millions of dollars into the film development system. Why shouldn't they have their revenue stream protected too? Why not freeze the progress of technology to ensure that no business ever becomes obsolete? We had entertainment before copyright. We will still have it afterwards.

edanm 14y ago

We like content. There is a business model that (most people agree) makes it so more content is created. You are saying "why should we care about that business model being wiped out" [1], and the reason is because most people agree that that business model makes it so more content is created, which is what we want. To convince us that we in fact shouldn't care, convince us either that: 1. Content (of similar quantity and quality) will in fact still be created, in spite of that business model dying. You're not likely to convince people of this, I believe. 2. Content (of similar quantity and quality) will in fact sill be created, because another business model will take its place. [1]: Not a direct quote.

betterunix 14y ago
"Content (of similar quantity and quality) will in fact still be created, in spite of that business model dying. You're not likely to convince people of this, I believe." "Content" was created long before copyrights. Technology may have changed and opened the door to new kinds of entertainment, but if you are looking for an example of how entertainment might be created in the absence of copyright, you need look no further than a history book. How will movies be monetized? Maybe we need movie theaters to deliver a positive experience we cannot easily duplicate in our homes. Maybe we will see an increase in serials -- you do not get to see the next installment of a popular show until a certain amount of money is paid. Maybe there is some radically different way to monetize movies that neither you nor I are creative enough to come up with. As long as we cling to copyright, however, we will not only never see such things, but we will continue to see great systems and technologies killed in the name of copyright enforcement. "Content (of similar quantity and quality)" I think we can strive for something of better quality than what we see today. The majority of today's mainstream music and movies are not particularly high quality -- formulaic plots, formulaic melodies and arrangements, a heavy focus on special effects to make up for bad storytelling and unoriginal music, and a general lack of creativity.
- edanm 14y ago
  If you want to convince me, show me where in history you have examples of content being created without copyrights, of the same quantity/quality. Obviously we'll have to normalize your data to the size of the population in the past, not to mention the amount of free time they had available. And if you are really interested in this topic, I suggest you read about the history of copyrights. For example, in the 1800's there was a large debate about the values of copyrights in the British Parliament, which echoes a lot of the same arguments made today (even including a prediction of the kind of piracy we have today). One of the non-obvious points raised is that a model like you describe, e.g. most "normal" jobs where you get paid for your time/output, has some very undesirable properties. Specifically, not allowing for the "misunderstood genius" of people, but solely promoting popular content. The same kind of popular content you say is not of high quality, and which makes up a large proportion of content today, but definitely not everything. I'm not saying there aren't other answers out there. I'm saying that dismissively saying "look at history" ironically ignores history - the systems in place today are the result of a lot of discoure on these subjects throughout history, and saying "let's just scratch what there is and start over" is about as smart as trashing a large software project and recoding from scratch. [1] [1] For non-programmers: this is widely considered a very wrong thing to do.

rayiner 14y ago

All business models break down without law. You've just decided which laws you like and don't and which business models you like and don't. I disagree that renting bits is evil. I think selling out peoples privacy is evil. That's what has arisen instead because its impractical to rent bits. We're just arguing relative moral preferences at that point.

macspoofing 14y ago

You cannot possibly be that dense. Though copyright laws need reform, there is 0 chance of completely dismantling them. Not only because there is no political willpower to do something like this, but also because it's not the right approach, and nobody actually wants something like this - not content creators (from software shops, to musicians to music studios), and not regular consumers. Framing your discussion in that corner, makes it easy to just completely dismiss your point of view because there is little value in it.

lukifer 14y ago

I'm not arguing that every business model deserves to survive; I'm talking about the specific case of consuming audio/video content without keeping it. Renting bits does seem antiquated, yet it's a type of transaction that both consumers and creators enjoy. Obviously in a perfect world, DRM would be illegal (or at least, frowned upon by consumers), and all content would be available in a globally accessible digital library that magically compensated creators. But that would represent a huge shift in economics which would have to take place at the level of law and public policy, not the technology used to facilitate the transaction. The situation is analogous to abstinence vs. sex education for young people: if they're going to do the wrong thing (DRM/promiscuity), they should at least do the wrong thing the right way (web standards/using protection).