UK ISP Boss: 'The Pirates Will Always Win'

from the so-now-what? dept

Last year, when the recording industry in the UK was pushing for ISPs to act as copyright cops, Charles Dunstone, the head of Carphone Warehouse and its TalkTalk ISP, stood up and bashed the recording industry for even daring to suggest that the ISP should be responsible for the recording industry's own inability to adapt. As he said at the time of the recording industry:

"They're not just shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted -- the horse has left town, got married, and started a family."

As numerous people are submitting, Dunstone is back at it, stating the obvious to a recording industry that needs to hear it. He's trying to explain to them that, no matter how hard it tries, it can't stop unauthorized file sharing, noting that "the pirates will always win" and any attempt to stop them is simply "naive":

If you try speed humps or disconnections for peer-to-peer, people will simply either disguise their traffic or share the content another way. It is a game of Tom and Jerry and you will never catch the mouse. The mouse always wins in this battle and we need to be careful that politicians do not get talked into putting legislation in place that, in the end, ends up looking stupid....

If people want to share content they will find another way to do it.... It is more about education and allowing people to get content easily and cheaply that will make a difference. This idea that it is all peer to peer and somehow the ISPs can just stop it is very naive.

Of course, this is what plenty of people have been saying for years. There have been plenty of opportunities for the recording industry to embrace opportunities, and they've failed almost every single time. Instead, as always, they want to complain about the "pirates" and the "thieves" while other companies build the new music industry around them.

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Time For Journalists To Take A Lesson From (Smart) Musicians

from the the-model-has-changed... dept

These days there are a few types of stories we see and write about consistently: (1) the legacy recording industry's troubles in adapting to a changing market, (2) the ability of a bunch of motivated, smart musicians, bucking the old way of doing things and finding tremendous success and (3) the legacy newspaper industry's troubles in adapting to a changing market. Given (1) and (2), you would think that (3) might lead to the obvious (4) of a bunch of motivated, smart journalists, bucking the old way of doing things and finding tremendous success. And, in fact, that is happening, particularly with upstart blogs, but it's not getting as much attention. Romenesko points us to what should be a must-read essay over at the Columbia Journalism Review, highlighting the fact that worried journalists should be studying up on the success stories of musicians who are succeeding even as the legacy recording industry struggles.

It makes a few key points (which I'm summarizing and paraphrasing in this list) that apply to both, but which don't always get as much attention in the journalism field:

• Give away as much content as possible to build a following
• Share, don't hoard
• Really engage and connect with your audience
• Be authentic
• Build your personal brand

Some journalists (and musicians!) will likely push back on some of these, but it seems pretty clear that the market is rewarding people who follow these steps, and punishing those who don't.

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