9 ms·

If you could make the choice of what content to watch and what to watch it with independently, this could be said to be a free market decision. As is, my decisi

If you could make the choice of what content to watch and what to watch it with independently, this could be said to be a free market decision. As is, my decision to support or not support DRM dictates the content I can watch. That for most people the content is more important gives the false signal that people are choosing DRM (which, in reality, pretty much nobody would). That's not a functional free market. There is no market for non-DRMed content that's on an even footing with the market for DRMed content.

rayiner 12y ago
I feel like this is a rationalization. The fact that a market is free doesn't mean that producers can't sell on the terms they want. There is DRM-free content, just not the content you want. Content creators choose to use DRM because very few users object to it, and I bet with modern DRM most don't even know it exists. That's a perfectly functional free market. Its like saying that there isn't a functional free market for social networks because you want a subscription-supported site while Facebook, etc, are ad supported. The fact that a seller won't sell on the terms I want doesn't mean its not a free market.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  Agreed. People whining about the loss of a "free market" are, in reality, whining about their loss of control over the producers' options. It doesn't make a bit of sense. In fact, one indication of a "free market" at work is when they're selling things you don't like.
- wolfgke 12y ago
  > The fact that a market is free doesn't mean that producers can't sell on the terms they want. Copyright laws stand in the way of a free market. If there was a free market anybody could make a copy of some content and sell it (perhaps they would have to pay parts of the profit to the original owners, but nevertheless anybody would basically allowed to sell what they want: that's what a free market is about).
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Free market != anarchy. Copyright doesn't stand in the way of a free market any more than the property rights that keep me from hacking into Facebook and creating a competitor with its database.
- brownbat 12y ago
  > The fact that a market is free... We're talking about a government-created monopoly though. If there is competition over distribution, rather than content, better delivery mechanisms eventually win. We had this when FM displaced AM radio. There was a compulsory licensing regime, which means that anyone can distribute any content they want for a reasonable fixed fee. FM was a better distribution technology, so it won, but only because it was allowed to compete on the same terms, with the same content.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    All property rights are government created monopolies. Imagine applying compulsory licensing to other things. They government forces you to sell your widgets at a "reasonable fixed fee." Imagine the government forcing Google or Facebook to share their databases to potential competitors for a "reasonable fixed fee." Compulsory licensing was a tactic used to shift profits from content creators to middlemen.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      Obviously compulsory copyright licensing only applies to things that were being sold in the first place. Anyway can you explain your widget scenario more? In particular, how is it less fair than existing compulsory radio licensing?
    - brownbat 12y ago
      > All property rights are government created monopolies. It's true that governments attempt to ensure property rights in other things. But tangible goods have a natural scarcity, while scarcity is imposed on digitial copies. My use of a plow excludes your simultaneously use of the plow. My use of an mp3 does not. Government steps in and limits the technology artificially, creating an artificial scarcity, not unlike a "club good": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_good The fact that widgets are "rivalrous" is exactly why they're poor candidates for such schemes. But the way we sell "widgets" isn't the ideal way to provide all things. The way we sell widgets wouldn't be a good way to sell street lighting or national defense, however, because those goods are "non-excludable," meaning you get free rider problems. So we have different systems for different goods based on the properties of those goods. Ocean going vessels don't shop for lighthouses at a corner store, and we don't have a municipal fund set aside to supply every child with popsicles. My humble suggestion is that we treat digital content more like other non-rivalrous goods, and less like popsicles. > Compulsory licensing was a tactic... Compulsory licensing arose in many different domains for different reasons. Radio, live performances, cover bands all have somewhat unique histories that defy one simple damning motive. Regardless of past motives, I'm happy to agree that compulsory licensing wouldn't be a good scheme if its only benefit was to move profits from one group to another. It improves efficiency more broadly though. There are several reasons, but for one, consider the transaction costs to any negotiation with any content holder. If society can just have that negotiation once, publicly, it will save everyone a lot of hassle. It also cleanly addresses the holdout problem, I find that a major perk.
- stormbrew 12y ago
  The social network example is extremely poor. In the case of a social network, Facebook has no means to prevent its users from using other social networks. The value proposition of a social network is in its users, and any network that can attract users can attract other users on that basis. There is no exclusive relationship between the content (users) and content providers (facebook et. al.). In the case of television and film content there are basically no non-exclusive relationships between content creators and their distributors. I cannot buy only the content, I must buy their distribution restrictions as well.
  - pdonis 12y ago
    > There is no exclusive relationship between the content (users) and content providers (facebook et. al.). Really? You can export all your Facebook data and switch to another social network that will import it all? Please tell us all how you do this. You're ignoring the huge effect of lock-in for a site like Facebook: they have all your data, and there's no way for you to get it back in a non-proprietary format. Functionally this is basically the same as DRM: you don't control how you can access your social network data, Facebook does.
    - stormbrew 12y ago
      I once worked for a social network (dominant demographically and regionally) that was destroyed in a matter of a few months by Facebook coming into the open market. I have a pretty intimate knowledge of how weak these bonds can be. It took a catalyzing event (a major change the users didn't like) to make them truly gone, but in the end they slowly left their (often very creative and interesting) data behind and moved to the better thing. You still exist as an independent entity. There's no data you have on facebook that you can't possibly do without. And you almost certainly concurrently exist on several social networks. I'm not really sure how you can try to argue that this is a similar kind of 'lock-in' to the fact that there is only one distributor for any piece of content and they control that distribution online pretty much right to my TV. Social networks are nothing like that.
      - 12y ago
neura 12y ago
This is absolutely still a free market. You want the content, you're going to make a choice in what you're willing to do for that content. If it requires you to pay for it or it requires you to install a plugin or it requires you to use a browser that supports the streaming of it, those are all choices you can make. That's the idea behind a free market. Maybe you should look up the definition of "free market economy". If DRM is part of the price of viewing the content, that's part of the economy. Non-DRM protected content is still available, in the same market, but is generally less sought after in the same way that people are usually much less interested (if at all) in content that does not have a price or is completely free. If something has value, the creator usually wants to receive that value for their work. TL;DR: This is exactly a free market economy. Anybody can provide content. There is no price fixing. Access to the content is not government controlled. Etc. Etc. The only thing standing between you and the content you want is what the creator/owner of that content wishes to receive from you in exchange for the content, be it money, DRM embedded in the delivery tools, etc.

rayiner 12y ago

I feel like this is a rationalization. The fact that a market is free doesn't mean that producers can't sell on the terms they want. There is DRM-free content, just not the content you want. Content creators choose to use DRM because very few users object to it, and I bet with modern DRM most don't even know it exists. That's a perfectly functional free market. Its like saying that there isn't a functional free market for social networks because you want a subscription-supported site while Facebook, etc, are ad supported. The fact that a seller won't sell on the terms I want doesn't mean its not a free market.

CamperBob2 12y ago
Agreed. People whining about the loss of a "free market" are, in reality, whining about their loss of control over the producers' options. It doesn't make a bit of sense. In fact, one indication of a "free market" at work is when they're selling things you don't like.
wolfgke 12y ago
> The fact that a market is free doesn't mean that producers can't sell on the terms they want. Copyright laws stand in the way of a free market. If there was a free market anybody could make a copy of some content and sell it (perhaps they would have to pay parts of the profit to the original owners, but nevertheless anybody would basically allowed to sell what they want: that's what a free market is about).
- rayiner 12y ago
  Free market != anarchy. Copyright doesn't stand in the way of a free market any more than the property rights that keep me from hacking into Facebook and creating a competitor with its database.
brownbat 12y ago
> The fact that a market is free... We're talking about a government-created monopoly though. If there is competition over distribution, rather than content, better delivery mechanisms eventually win. We had this when FM displaced AM radio. There was a compulsory licensing regime, which means that anyone can distribute any content they want for a reasonable fixed fee. FM was a better distribution technology, so it won, but only because it was allowed to compete on the same terms, with the same content.
- rayiner 12y ago
  All property rights are government created monopolies. Imagine applying compulsory licensing to other things. They government forces you to sell your widgets at a "reasonable fixed fee." Imagine the government forcing Google or Facebook to share their databases to potential competitors for a "reasonable fixed fee." Compulsory licensing was a tactic used to shift profits from content creators to middlemen.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    Obviously compulsory copyright licensing only applies to things that were being sold in the first place. Anyway can you explain your widget scenario more? In particular, how is it less fair than existing compulsory radio licensing?
  - brownbat 12y ago
    > All property rights are government created monopolies. It's true that governments attempt to ensure property rights in other things. But tangible goods have a natural scarcity, while scarcity is imposed on digitial copies. My use of a plow excludes your simultaneously use of the plow. My use of an mp3 does not. Government steps in and limits the technology artificially, creating an artificial scarcity, not unlike a "club good": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_good The fact that widgets are "rivalrous" is exactly why they're poor candidates for such schemes. But the way we sell "widgets" isn't the ideal way to provide all things. The way we sell widgets wouldn't be a good way to sell street lighting or national defense, however, because those goods are "non-excludable," meaning you get free rider problems. So we have different systems for different goods based on the properties of those goods. Ocean going vessels don't shop for lighthouses at a corner store, and we don't have a municipal fund set aside to supply every child with popsicles. My humble suggestion is that we treat digital content more like other non-rivalrous goods, and less like popsicles. > Compulsory licensing was a tactic... Compulsory licensing arose in many different domains for different reasons. Radio, live performances, cover bands all have somewhat unique histories that defy one simple damning motive. Regardless of past motives, I'm happy to agree that compulsory licensing wouldn't be a good scheme if its only benefit was to move profits from one group to another. It improves efficiency more broadly though. There are several reasons, but for one, consider the transaction costs to any negotiation with any content holder. If society can just have that negotiation once, publicly, it will save everyone a lot of hassle. It also cleanly addresses the holdout problem, I find that a major perk.
stormbrew 12y ago
The social network example is extremely poor. In the case of a social network, Facebook has no means to prevent its users from using other social networks. The value proposition of a social network is in its users, and any network that can attract users can attract other users on that basis. There is no exclusive relationship between the content (users) and content providers (facebook et. al.). In the case of television and film content there are basically no non-exclusive relationships between content creators and their distributors. I cannot buy only the content, I must buy their distribution restrictions as well.
- pdonis 12y ago
  > There is no exclusive relationship between the content (users) and content providers (facebook et. al.). Really? You can export all your Facebook data and switch to another social network that will import it all? Please tell us all how you do this. You're ignoring the huge effect of lock-in for a site like Facebook: they have all your data, and there's no way for you to get it back in a non-proprietary format. Functionally this is basically the same as DRM: you don't control how you can access your social network data, Facebook does.
  - stormbrew 12y ago
    I once worked for a social network (dominant demographically and regionally) that was destroyed in a matter of a few months by Facebook coming into the open market. I have a pretty intimate knowledge of how weak these bonds can be. It took a catalyzing event (a major change the users didn't like) to make them truly gone, but in the end they slowly left their (often very creative and interesting) data behind and moved to the better thing. You still exist as an independent entity. There's no data you have on facebook that you can't possibly do without. And you almost certainly concurrently exist on several social networks. I'm not really sure how you can try to argue that this is a similar kind of 'lock-in' to the fact that there is only one distributor for any piece of content and they control that distribution online pretty much right to my TV. Social networks are nothing like that.
    - 12y ago

neura 12y ago

This is absolutely still a free market. You want the content, you're going to make a choice in what you're willing to do for that content. If it requires you to pay for it or it requires you to install a plugin or it requires you to use a browser that supports the streaming of it, those are all choices you can make. That's the idea behind a free market. Maybe you should look up the definition of "free market economy". If DRM is part of the price of viewing the content, that's part of the economy. Non-DRM protected content is still available, in the same market, but is generally less sought after in the same way that people are usually much less interested (if at all) in content that does not have a price or is completely free. If something has value, the creator usually wants to receive that value for their work. TL;DR: This is exactly a free market economy. Anybody can provide content. There is no price fixing. Access to the content is not government controlled. Etc. Etc. The only thing standing between you and the content you want is what the creator/owner of that content wishes to receive from you in exchange for the content, be it money, DRM embedded in the delivery tools, etc.