On Monday 19 November 2007 14:58, Dave Crossland wrote: > GOODS THAT HAVE NO COST > OF MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTION
Television programmes have zero cost? Crikey, I didn't realise people were so civil spirited. Incidentally, where can I get zero cost internet connectivity with unlimited upload bandwidth? More seriously... Yes, businesses must change -- we all know that. Until you have a better way of funding it than the current model then you're demanding one thing: less to be made _at the same quality_ or lowering of quality. The current model is predicated on distribution being a scarce resource, remove that and you eradicate or cripple the majority of current income schemes. Funding for commericial players comes from investors. Investors look for a return on their investment as income. If you can actively show they can make more money from a non-DRM world (which creates an artificial scarcity of distribution), they'll fund it. Since also from *that* perspective the aim of DRM is to create an artificial scarcity that doesn't have to be perfect it just has to be sufficiently good to make a sufficiently good scarcity to make a suffiently good income. There is logically a time that will come when even a DRM'd world is no longer viable as an artificial scarcity, at which point the companies involved will either evolve or die. So as I say, if you can actively show they can make more money or even just equal money, given the long term view, from a non-DRM world, investors will bite your hand off to help you. (hmm, badly mixed metaphor) If you can't, they won't. If you don't like that your only alternative is to legislate or wait. Stamping your foot in public without addressing this is simply wasting your (and everyone else's) time. Incidentally, I'd like to see someone address this because in the long term it is a real issue, and I would personally like to see quality maintained or go up, and the volume of stuff produced either stay the same or go up. (It's also why the foot stamping is sooooo annoying since it's just shouting "IT'S BAD!IT'S BAD!IT'S BAD!IT'S BAD!IT'S BAD!", without actually offering a *real* alternative that will actually move things forwards.) Richard Stallman could've stood and shouted "It's Bad!" about proprietary software for the past 23 years, but instead he decided to say "no, whilst I won't be a part of that world, I'll create a viable alternative". Surely that's more productive. (and yes, I know he's done his fair share of shouting "It's bad!" too, but if someone offers a realistic alternative they're generally more worth listening to) Incidentally, it's probably worth observing that the key thing that makes open source and free software REALLY work is networked source control (well, "diff" + the internet actully. Remove "diff+internet" and life gets real hard, real fast (you can do it of course)). The equivalent doesn't exist for media yet as far as I know. If someone REALLY wanted to make a change, that's where I'd start. You've probably got 20 years or more work ahead of you if you do though :-). Now to my mind, though, that'd be REAL innovation in the industry... Michael. -- (all personal views) - 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/
