The Debate Is Not Free vs. Paid

from the that's-over dept

Michael Scott points us to a column by Shelly Palmer that clearly articulates a point I've tried to make in the past, but haven't been able to make that clearly: arguing "free vs. paid" is the wrong debate. Professional content is always paid for somehow -- it's just a question of how. In some cases it's a third party paying. In some cases it's a user paying. And, in some cases, it's a user paying not with money, but with something else, like time or attention, which helps give a third party the reason to pay:

Can you frame this conversation as free vs. paid? No. Not if you are trying to get someone to pay you cash directly for something that is ubiquitously available for free. Free vs. Paid is not the great debate, it's a no-brainer -- free wins! Valueless vs Valuable, Scarce vs Ubiquitous, Demanding of attention vs Commanding of attention are the debates and the winners will be the individuals and organizations that can most effectively translate the value of content into wealth.

Exactly. This is why the focus on "free" is almost always misplaced. People stop thinking once they hit that big oval zero -- and forget that free is simply a part of a larger business model, which is often about bringing in a larger audience that gives other reasons to pay.

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eMusic Trying To Censor Critics Of New Pricing Plan? [Updated... And Again]

from the not-smart dept

We just wrote about the PR nightmare facing eMusic for announcing both a price increase and its first major record label signing at the same time -- leading many to assume that the price increase was due to the Sony Music deal. Some in our comments pointed out that eMusic subscribers were protesting in a variety of places -- including on Twitter, where they were using the hashtag (used to designate a unique cause or event): #emusicfail. And, as usually happens in such situations, many of the hundreds of commenters on eMusic's own blog post on the deal mentioned the Twitter hashtag, and encouraged others to start using it as well, while making their protests public. So, how did eMusic address these angry customers?

It apparently made them disappear. [see update below]

A commenter on our post, pointed us to a comment on the eMusic blog noting that all of the comments that mentioned the Twitter tag had been deleted by eMusic -- not only wiping out signs of the protest, but also screwing up the numbers of comments, which made the conversation confusing, since people are referring to other comments with the wrong number now.

So, rather than address the fact that there are a ton of angry protesters, eMusic simply decided to pretend they don't exist? It's hard to see that ending well.

Update: eMusic got in touch to say that they have not blocked or deleted any comments, and suggest that it may have been an issue with CAPTCHA problems not allowing comments to post rather than any actual intent to block conversation on the subject. The company also notes that it has responded to the complaints, though I'm not sure it really addresses the specific complaints from subscribers.

Update 2: There is growing evidence that the original post was correct, and eMusic's response was false, though we're still trying to clarify. Someone has detailed examples of comments moving up (which would happen if other comments above it were deleted) and also, perhaps the most damning of all is that, as of the time of this update, there's a 13 count discrepancy between the number of comments listed under the post, and the actual number of comments. It certainly sounds like 13 comments were deleted, though eMusic insists that it has not removed any comments.

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The Economist Debate On Copyright Needs Your Input

from the go-to-it dept

As plenty of people have sent in, the Economist is running an online debate about copyright this week, kicked off with the opening statement "This house believes that existing copyright laws do more harm than good" and then allowing debaters to make the case both for and against the proposition. Defending the motion is Harvard Law professor William Fisher, who has long been a proponent of reforming copyright law to make it much more reasonable. Against the motion, and trying to make the case that copyright law does more good than harm is Cardozo Law professor Justin Hughes. To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed that they chose law professors for the debate, rather than economists, because you would think economists would be better situated to determine good and harm, rather than law professors.

Fisher does a decent job with the opening statement, though I think he could make the points more clear and much more forcefully by highlighting the value over time of the public domain on creativity. Hughes' opening statement, however, is a mess. Let's start with this:

Those of us who think copyright law is a good idea--that it does more good than harm--believe that free market economic incentives are needed for the production (and often distribution) of all kinds of valuable expression and information, whether we are discussing educational value, civic value, or entertainment value. There is no question that much expression would be produced without copyright: the landed gentry was writing poetry before copyright. But to get both the desired amount and mix of expression, properly calibrated copyright is the best tool. The words "properly calibrated" are important, because once the new expression or information is created, social welfare is usually increased by its widespread distribution.

This paragraph makes no sense to me. It claims the free market is best, but then suggests the only way to get a free market is to grant gov't-backed monopolies, which are the exact opposite of a free market. As if to drive home that contradiction, he goes on about "properly calibrating" this gov't system. Again, that's not a free market. If you're talking about properly calibrating, then you're talking about a government system. Now, it's perfectly reasonable to make a defense that one needs a gov't program -- but it's disingenuous to claim that we need a free market, and then discuss the gov't program as if that is a free market. It's not. If you want a gov't program, then explain why we need a gov't program and defend that. Don't claim it's a free market.

He then goes on to claim that content that is paid for is somehow of higher quality than content produced under some other model. But, the problem is he gets the details wrong and confuses correlation with causation. He insists that a creative class can only exist with copyright, but that's simply not true. We've seen business model after business model after business model that supports a "creative class" without relying on copyright to make money. Yes, having a creative class is important. And making sure they can earn money is important. But that doesn't require copyright. The fact that people like professionally produced content doesn't prove his point. It just shows that people like professionally produced content. It doesn't mean that you need copyright to produce it.

Next, he claims that copyright is not hindering free expression, because we've seen this "absolute explosion of expressive production and dissemination with little or no hindrance from copyright law" and then brushes off the "horror stories" of limitations, by claiming that these horror stories need to "be weighed against the enormous flourishing of non-commercial expression that has coexisted with the copyright system." That's totally missing the point. The fact that lots of content does get produced doesn't mean that copyright doesn't create massive limitations on more creativity. Again, he's confusing correlation with causation.

He then concludes with another mistake:

In truth, what we have now is a mixed economy for expression in which some expression is produced under a patronage model (foundation grants, universities), some expression is produced under the open source model (Linux, blogs), and some expression is produced under a profit/incentive model of copyright.

See what he did there? He claims that open source models are different than "profit/incentive" models. That's simply untrue. Plenty of people producing content under non-copyright models are doing it for profit. And that's the key point that many of us have been raising. There are plenty of other models to compensate creative professionals that don't rely on copyright. Hughes' entire argument seems to be based on the idea that the only model of compensation is copyright, and everything else is "open source" or "non-profit" or "amateur." He's wrong.

The debate site is allowing comments from the public (and votes on the motion, which have been trending in the wrong direction), so it would be good for more people to join in and express how copyright has done more harm than good, and how Professor Hughes seems to be basing his arguments on a faulty premise.

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