Everyone loses except the DRM owner, who is usually the outfit with the most money. Not the creator of value, and not its consumer.
We've already built a two-tier system that gets around this, but at the cost of losing leverage and wealth for value creators. The upper tier plays the DRM game, with the big firms. The lower tier works a paying job to finance the creation of value, and uses the gain to produce art. The art then sells in a set of markets restricted by lack of the big marketing money that grants wider visibility. The Web is changing that a little. Artists who would never have been seen except in a club or a meeting now gain attention globally, but the process is haphazard and payment is chancy at best. As many have found, it's hard to give fine art away -- somehow big price tags seem to convey an idea of value, which is about as misleading as things get. But if we find ways to get from creator directly to consumer, without the global slushpile getting in the way, DRM will die. It may never happen, but one can hope... Dana Eric Scoles wrote: > > > On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 1:30 PM, cd <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > DRM will completely rule the day, I believe. And here's why: DRM > will be like your stock proxy statement: it need only be so confusing > that you relent, and give up on asserting your rights. > > > > I mostly agree, with qualifications: > > * In the "Developed" ("First"?) world; > * For the medium term. > > > Beyond the medium term I really don't believe we can say. DRM will be > an economic drain on first world economies; it's a layer of > infrastructure and process that people won't have to put up with in > developing nations. First-worlders can try to bar entry by developing > nations, and that might work. > > A really effective DRM scheme would require top-down control (or at > least visibility) of just about every activity we can engage in that > can have economic consequences. Basically a capitalist version of Big > Brother. > > Your scenario is maybe a little less than fully effective: Good enough > to confuse us. You may be right. I sort of hope not, because the more > extreme vision is easier to get people riled up about. > > OTOH, that "good enough to confuse us" scenario is also good enough > for totalitarian control. > > > > > > > My wife just switched her iPod from PC to Mac. She lost half her > purchased content. Now, you can spend hours and hours, tracking down > for each purchased recording who controls the DRM, and figure out if > they have records that you bought it, and then see if they'll let you > transfer. Or you can relent because you have a life, and take another > step towards pay-per-use. > > > > This is what I meant when I was saying that transferring DRM media > fundamentally requires an infrastructure. You either have an > infrastructure, or you have totally free media. I can see your > argument about this being steps on a path toward pay-per-use; I > actually think the revenue might be greater for pay-to-replace, if the > DRM environment stays confusing to the point of user-hostility. > > But you're right, a pay-per-use model of some kind is likely. I reckon > the more likely form it will take initially is as service fees. No > smart seller is going to want to have a blatant pay-per-use system out > there, especially not for leisure items like music or books, because > it will inhibit consumption and breed ill-will. So they'll disguise it. > > Kindle can be our guide here: Everything you get on your Kindle is > tethered to Amazon. The device has a fair amount of capacity, but you > can easily imagine people outstripping that. In such a case, Amazon > just stores the stuff for you (or so I understand). By virtue of that, > or of the fact that they have total access to your Kindle at any time, > they have total control over your library -- and they can charge you > for access to it. They'll frame it as "defraying cost" to start with, > and I doubt they'll shut off your ability to get to the content on > "your" Kindle [curious: do people actually "own" their Kindles?], but > I'm betting they will in some sense start to charge for the storage, > and sooner rather than later. Probably within the next two years. > > > > > > We're moving inexorably towards a model in which the corporations that > distribute culture will demand from us pay-per-use and pay-per-media > (e.g., that new right they invented in which they get to control not > only the content but how you utilize it -- so you can't let an > algorithm read it). > > > > This is really thought-control, in a sense. It's a more subtle > manifestation of the same ideas that underpin NewSpeak: Controlling > the distribution and redistribution of creative product constrains the > mutational functions of art. If you control how content can be passed > around, you can have really unprecedented levels of control over the > ways that people /think/. (Think: "The Girl Who Was Plugged In." > Tiptree was both a psychologist and a former Spook, after all.) > > It's obvious that entrenched interests would want to control the flow > and direction of art; in doing so, they could end up with the societal > equivalent of an AKC-certified purebred, good for show or > narrowly-constrained tasks, and not much of anything else. > > Societies that didn't have that kind of constraint would still be free > to adapt in ways that ours wouldn't. So that's why part of me keeps > saying (contra so many SFian authorial voices) that there's hope for > the future in places like Africa, where there's less technological > infrastructure for control. > > (Of course, since they'll be going with newer technology right out of > the gate, that window might now last long...) > > > > > > I'm disgusted that many of the writer organizations are on the wrong > side of this battle. We're as bad as Disney, making use of our > history and then not only demanding no one make use of us, but > supporting the choking of the channels as a result. We complain about > the publishing business and then our organizations line up behind the > very interests that destroy it. > > > A lot of it seems to me to be driven by no one wanting to give up the > idea that they may one day be best-sellers with million-$$ contracts. > As Tom Tomorrow likes to put it: "I am opposed to taxing the wealthy > because I believe that I may someday become wealthy." > > > > -- > eric scoles ([email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>) > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
