I've thought similarly for a while. Broadband internet bandwidth is essentially a featureless service, and fits in with a bunch of utilities we already regulate.
I think a compromise could be something like what they have in the UK, where BT is forced to sell bandwidth wholesale (regulated price) to smaller (regional) companies that can then turn and attract subscribers however they can. iirc BT fought this hard at first but it has actually worked out for them pretty well (less overhead, more efficient now that they can focus more on just the infrastructure).
Projects like Google Fiber help too, but I don't think their scale is large enough.
"Copyright may have some gray areas but he wasn't in any of them-- unless you're some anarchist who believes that it's wrong to give the creator any control over their hard work."
I think the extremely gray area was the part where he owes multiple times his entire net worth in damages for a crime that didn't hurt anyone. If you would even try to claim that him sharing those songs cost the industry a mere 100$ you would have to be completely out of touch with reality. As soon as a song is released, and more commonly before, the cat is out of the bag.
You bought seven seasons of a show you never watched for 75$? For most people that is quite a plunge, and I daresay they would rather spend the 5m it takes to bittorrent a few episodes to see if they like it first.
It's not about sticking it to the man. Most people want to support shows they like, if its at all possible and within their budget. It's not their fault that all these companies have half-century old business models.
Piracy is a force that every company making digital goods has to deal with at some point. Understanding why people are pirating your software/media can help you make better business decisions.
"Even if you were to do away with 'locked' phones, it doesn't matter -- most phones physically can't work on any of the other networks. Even networks that support the same standards use different parts of the spectrum and the phones can be incompatible. Given that you need to sign a two-year contract to not pay an insane amount for a decent device, it means you can't 'just switch', and thus 'competition' doesn't work in the normal way."
Misleading. This is only true if the phones are designed to specifically only work on one network. RF transceivers are not that sensitive. It is true in that the providers ask for these phones to be hardware locked, but in that case you aren't really "doing away" with 'locked' phones.
All of this makes a great case for turning data bandwidth and network management in to something like a public utility (look at British Telecomm). This has led to a huge amount of competition between "service providers", who now buy bandwidth wholesale from BT (at a regulated rate) and then sell plans to consumers.
My point is that data bandwidth is a completely featureless product, like water or electricity. Since these companies (comcast/telcos/whoever) OWN the featureless product, they try to bundle things in to it and make it a non-featureless product, even though that isn't the service that most of us want. If companies had to buy the bandwidth wholesale, they would HAVE to offer what the consumer wants in order to compete.
I believe you could re-introduce competition to these markets if our anti-trust laws actually worked, and if internet bandwidth was made in to a public utility.
Exactly, the first few people to try counter suits against these huge corporations would have to fight through appeals court after appeals court. The major labels wouldn't even care too much if they lost, as they could clearly show it is not economically feasible to try to take them to court.
I'd say a system that requires a judge/jury to determine whether some piece of art is infringing or fair use is definitely a design level issue. Judges shouldn't have to be art/music critics.
"No matter the what the cost of the books, I spend about the same amount per month."
This is largely true for all forms of entertainment. People have a set amount they can spend on entertainment, be it movies/books/bars/shows/etc. One of the things that can significantly affect this number is a) marketing and b) making it easy for a consumer to buy.
It is incredibly easy to justify on a whim buying a 1.00$ ebook, a 1-2$ tv show episode, or a 2-5$ movie/game. Most studies show that buying at these prices can easily become habitual and consistent. Just look at ringtones in the 90's and smartphone/tablet apps today. Angry birds priced at .99$ pretty much feels free.
Habitual / consistent buying patterns function very similarly to subscription based revenue streams, which is the bread & butter of so many businesses. I guess the point is you can attract many new buyers with low priced digital goods, who will then often buy more digital goods and in the meantime be exposed to the other products your website offers.
Amazon does a pretty good job of this, as they know these offerings increase the value of their service. These days, whenever I need to buy something, I usually just assume Amazon will have it. And so they get my money.
This HAS to scare the hell out of record labels. Even if not everyone can pull it off, it's at least going to make a A LOT more artists consider doing things a different way (sans label). Plus they will get to control artistic direction, which is always nice.
I would take amazon/kickstarter taking 5% of an artists revenue as opposed to a label taking 90% of it any day.
You shouldn't deserve a job tomorrow just because you've had it for the last 10 years. If you aren't worth what your company is paying you, they will let you go.
Well, the music industry is letting the labels go. "Distribution channels" exist without needing to pay a premium. If the new model cannibalizes the old, it's only the labels fault for not getting on board sooner.
She could absolutely do it. Lets make it $500,000 just for kicks. Buys a REAL NICE house.
Now lets assume these people paying her are her biggest fans. What do you think happens to her fan base when she doesn't come through with any of her promises.
The result seems pretty obvious, so I won't continue to spoon feed it to you.
It's pretty hard to raise money without credentials. Doing so requires transparency and communication. Most kickstarter funders realize there is no legal obligation for the person they are funding to come through with a product/service.
And it's not even illegal. If you think you can make some easy money tricking people into paying you on Kickstarter, I would LOVE to see you try.
Hollywood blows tons of money on their blockbuster-formula movies. Granted, I enjoy a lot of these movies, but I've watched a number of independently developed movies that have exceptional special effects / CGI with budgets of less than a million bucks.
And who says we'll need actors in the future? In general, 90% of the time directors hate working with actors. With advances in graphics and human CGI models, who knows how long before human actors are fighting for their jobs?
You have no imagination, and seemingly no ability to accept paradigm shifts in the future.
Good Ideas
I've thought similarly for a while. Broadband internet bandwidth is essentially a featureless service, and fits in with a bunch of utilities we already regulate.
I think a compromise could be something like what they have in the UK, where BT is forced to sell bandwidth wholesale (regulated price) to smaller (regional) companies that can then turn and attract subscribers however they can. iirc BT fought this hard at first but it has actually worked out for them pretty well (less overhead, more efficient now that they can focus more on just the infrastructure).
Projects like Google Fiber help too, but I don't think their scale is large enough.
Re: Poor Engineers
Don't. They could choose not to work there.
Re: Sucks to be Tenenbaum? He asked for it.
"Copyright may have some gray areas but he wasn't in any of them-- unless you're some anarchist who believes that it's wrong to give the creator any control over their hard work."
I think the extremely gray area was the part where he owes multiple times his entire net worth in damages for a crime that didn't hurt anyone. If you would even try to claim that him sharing those songs cost the industry a mere 100$ you would have to be completely out of touch with reality. As soon as a song is released, and more commonly before, the cat is out of the bag.
These rulings are awful, end of story.
Re: STOP JUSTIFYING pirates.
You should hope that most people don't think the way you do, or we are going to watch the US legislate itself into economic stagnation.
Re:
You bought seven seasons of a show you never watched for 75$? For most people that is quite a plunge, and I daresay they would rather spend the 5m it takes to bittorrent a few episodes to see if they like it first.
It's not about sticking it to the man. Most people want to support shows they like, if its at all possible and within their budget. It's not their fault that all these companies have half-century old business models.
Piracy is a force that every company making digital goods has to deal with at some point. Understanding why people are pirating your software/media can help you make better business decisions.
Re: 'Competition' doesn't quite have the same meaning in the mobile market.
"Even if you were to do away with 'locked' phones, it doesn't matter -- most phones physically can't work on any of the other networks. Even networks that support the same standards use different parts of the spectrum and the phones can be incompatible. Given that you need to sign a two-year contract to not pay an insane amount for a decent device, it means you can't 'just switch', and thus 'competition' doesn't work in the normal way."
Misleading. This is only true if the phones are designed to specifically only work on one network. RF transceivers are not that sensitive. It is true in that the providers ask for these phones to be hardware locked, but in that case you aren't really "doing away" with 'locked' phones.
Re: Re: Re:
All of this makes a great case for turning data bandwidth and network management in to something like a public utility (look at British Telecomm). This has led to a huge amount of competition between "service providers", who now buy bandwidth wholesale from BT (at a regulated rate) and then sell plans to consumers.
My point is that data bandwidth is a completely featureless product, like water or electricity. Since these companies (comcast/telcos/whoever) OWN the featureless product, they try to bundle things in to it and make it a non-featureless product, even though that isn't the service that most of us want. If companies had to buy the bandwidth wholesale, they would HAVE to offer what the consumer wants in order to compete.
I believe you could re-introduce competition to these markets if our anti-trust laws actually worked, and if internet bandwidth was made in to a public utility.
Re: Re: Re: Band-Aids
Exactly, the first few people to try counter suits against these huge corporations would have to fight through appeals court after appeals court. The major labels wouldn't even care too much if they lost, as they could clearly show it is not economically feasible to try to take them to court.
Re: Re: Band-Aids
I'd say a system that requires a judge/jury to determine whether some piece of art is infringing or fair use is definitely a design level issue. Judges shouldn't have to be art/music critics.
Re:
"No matter the what the cost of the books, I spend about the same amount per month."
This is largely true for all forms of entertainment. People have a set amount they can spend on entertainment, be it movies/books/bars/shows/etc. One of the things that can significantly affect this number is a) marketing and b) making it easy for a consumer to buy.
It is incredibly easy to justify on a whim buying a 1.00$ ebook, a 1-2$ tv show episode, or a 2-5$ movie/game. Most studies show that buying at these prices can easily become habitual and consistent. Just look at ringtones in the 90's and smartphone/tablet apps today. Angry birds priced at .99$ pretty much feels free.
Habitual / consistent buying patterns function very similarly to subscription based revenue streams, which is the bread & butter of so many businesses. I guess the point is you can attract many new buyers with low priced digital goods, who will then often buy more digital goods and in the meantime be exposed to the other products your website offers.
Amazon does a pretty good job of this, as they know these offerings increase the value of their service. These days, whenever I need to buy something, I usually just assume Amazon will have it. And so they get my money.
Department of Justice?
Murderers and pedophiles get trials and due process, but if Hollywood points a finger at something they don't like we just throw out the constitution?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Music doesn't trigger huge payouts
This HAS to scare the hell out of record labels. Even if not everyone can pull it off, it's at least going to make a A LOT more artists consider doing things a different way (sans label). Plus they will get to control artistic direction, which is always nice.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I would take amazon/kickstarter taking 5% of an artists revenue as opposed to a label taking 90% of it any day.
You shouldn't deserve a job tomorrow just because you've had it for the last 10 years. If you aren't worth what your company is paying you, they will let you go.
Well, the music industry is letting the labels go. "Distribution channels" exist without needing to pay a premium. If the new model cannibalizes the old, it's only the labels fault for not getting on board sooner.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
She could absolutely do it. Lets make it $500,000 just for kicks. Buys a REAL NICE house.
Now lets assume these people paying her are her biggest fans. What do you think happens to her fan base when she doesn't come through with any of her promises.
The result seems pretty obvious, so I won't continue to spoon feed it to you.
Re:
I've never heard of her until today, and I most likely won't support her through Kickstarter.
That said, you sir are an idiot.
Re: Re:
It's pretty hard to raise money without credentials. Doing so requires transparency and communication. Most kickstarter funders realize there is no legal obligation for the person they are funding to come through with a product/service.
And it's not even illegal. If you think you can make some easy money tricking people into paying you on Kickstarter, I would LOVE to see you try.
Re: Re: Sell music, not copies
Or she could have become just as famous and made a lot more money then she did.
See, I can make up baseless hypothetical situations too.
Re:
Are.you.scared?
Re: Re:
He's just bitter because Jay beat him to the #1 post.
Re: Oh really?
Hollywood blows tons of money on their blockbuster-formula movies. Granted, I enjoy a lot of these movies, but I've watched a number of independently developed movies that have exceptional special effects / CGI with budgets of less than a million bucks.
And who says we'll need actors in the future? In general, 90% of the time directors hate working with actors. With advances in graphics and human CGI models, who knows how long before human actors are fighting for their jobs?
You have no imagination, and seemingly no ability to accept paradigm shifts in the future.