On 08/02/07, Jason Cartwright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:> > > I was going more for a "it might be broken by some, but it's good> > > enough for 'purpose'".> >> > And what is that purpose, exactely?>> The purpose of being good enough to satisfy the people that own> the rights to the content Satisfy the rights holders about what? That their files will not be shared? This is daft. The files will be shared. Satisfy the rights holders that they will not lose out on 'potentialdownload sales'? Potential sales are a mirage, moronic wishfulthinking. If I stand on Oxford street with a sausage frying stand and 500 hotdogs, and I say I want £100 a hot dog, I have potential sales of£50,000 every day! Not. Consider Sony. 10 years ago, they could've taken music file sharing asa loss leader on selling expensive music playing gadgets, andleveraged the success of portable music players to sell a lot moreVaios. This is 2001 vintage Apple - with a glib 'don't steal music'tagline that subcommunicated "Here is a perfect music stealing device,kids!", they leveraged iPods to sell Macs. Why didn't Sony go this way? I imagine their spreadsheets showed that,while profitable, this wouldn't be _as_ profitable as getting paideach time a music file is downloaded could be. Moronic wishful thinking is their business blunder, though. There something else that tempted them to act like morons too, Ishould add. When music went from LP to CD, or when film went from VHSto DVD, the costs involved dropped steeply. Pressing costs were lower,smaller boxes meant shipping and storage costs were lower, and therange of stock on shelves was higher. But the till price remained thesame. Right holders got away with this swindle, and think they canpull it off with the switch to digital. Note that to buy a whole albumon iTunes Music Store costs about the same as to buy the CD. (ZapMail tells a similar tale - http://www.shirky.com/writings/zapmail.html :-) The BBC should quit being timid, pony up, and present the case torights holders that DRM-free publishing of works on the Internet willincrease their bottom line. Part of that would be radically informingthe British public that while file sharing is encouraged, so isexchanging cash for value. This could be encouraging sales of boxed copies, or allowing people topay micro payment tip jar style. The millions the BBC is thinking ofspending on "DRM for GNU/Linux" could be much much better spend onsome decent artist-friendly propaganda and a micro payments systemthat _works_. Imagine that every time you read, listen or watch a work, you see abox on the side of the screen: "Enjoy this? Click to send a pound tothe writer/band/production co/etc". If you like the work you will sendthat pound, sometimes. It's only a pound. It's more than the authors are likely to get if youbuy the boxed version, and much less than the boxed version costs you.Its so little that it's not going to discourage you. You'd probablyget into the habit of paying a pound a couple of times a week.Especially if the BBC mounted a massive propaganda campaign to makepeople aware that it really did matter to send a pound. People are basically honest, not cheapskates, and are prepared toreward things they value. Being against banning sharing is not being against paying authors, butthose who conflate the two reveal something about themselves: Theywould not pay authors ifthey could. Businesses would indeed not pay authors if they could finda way of doing it, and many people dispense with all ethics for a fatsalary. And if micro payments sounds like a far-out way to monetise things, considerhttp://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/02/07/what-should-the-music-biz-do-next/ The BBC could turn its content into a pure "efficient" marketplacewith "perfect" visibility - a stock exchange. Think of the secondarymarket opportunities - derivatives, put options, short-selling,arbitrage... :-)
and therefore being able to release the content in this manner.
Releasing the works in this manner is harmful, since the works areless useful than taping to VHS, and therefore shouldn't be released atall. The potential for doing something different to business broadcastersis immense, and the whole point of the BBC in the first place. -- Regards,Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
