Author: john

The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog: The Content Wars

The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog: The Content Wars

Chicago Law faculty member Randy Picker writes about how the “content battle” over freely-found-and-downloaded vs paid vs ad-supported media will alter our media landscape. It’s an incredible point which needs more examination and discussion, but I would argue that the view expressed here must be checked by other emerging trends.

If we really live in a world in which only a single copy can be sold and then it will be free everywhere, we will need to abandon sales of content.

This is not necessarily true. While it may be technically possible to get content for free, many still choose to pay for content. Reasons vary from “supporting the artist” to the ease, convenience, and quality of paid content. Additionally, social norms are in many cases holding this outcome in check. For example, many downloaders of Japanese manga and anime adhere to a principle of supporting the paid content once it becomes licensed in their own country. In some cases, this includes removing links to the original copies (thus making the paid copies more convenient to obtain).

The sold copy has represented a simple way of organizing consumers to pay for content. When consumers pay for content, they are the patrons served by content producers. If consumers don’t pay for content, the advertisers are the patrons and it is their interests that will be served.

There is an additional way in which content is being changed through Internet culture which warrants mention: user manipulation. In a digital world where songs are mashed together or put to video, or foreign media are translated at an incredible rate, the control over a creator’s message is being drastically reduced. However, while control may be reduced it does not necessarily follow that income, status, or the purity of the original message will also be degraded. From a media theory standpoint, this moves us more explicitly away from the “bullet” model (where a communicator sends a message which has an effect on the listener) towards a feedback model. Under this understanding, a dialog takes place between creators and the audience, who are acknowledged and more engaged in the creation of culture.
The tension between the creation of content and the use (or reuse) of content need not be seen as a war. Hopefully it is an element of a more robust, interactive, and yet still profitable media system.

FTC Chairman Majoras enters the Net Neutrality debate

The chairman of the FTC (originally a recess appointment) spoke out on her views on the Internet neutrality debate. The net is buzzing with news and thoughts from various sources.

The chairman’s remark on the status of the market and competition is somewhat telling:

Net neutrality advocates are sincere in their concerns, … I just question the starting assumption that government regulation, rather than the market itself under existing laws, will provide the best solution to a problem.

As others have remarked, there aren’t really great market forces at work here because of the Cable vs DSL duopoly. What interests me in this case is the (little acknowledged) fact that the market was drastically altered by last year’s Brand X Supreme Court decision.

Essentially what the court did, which is relevant to this discussion, was allow cable broadband operators to continue to not allow alternative Internet Service Providers to use their wires. With this in hand, cable operators were freed from the possibility of having to open their wires to competitors, and DSL operators were given an excellent excuse to close their access to ISPs down. Regulation is a response to this change to maintain the status-quo of openness.

At the risk of treading on an existing analogy, it may help to think of the debate in terms of a mall and a bazaar. In the neutral-network world, much like a physical bazaar, anyone with goods to sell has access to the meeting place. There may be a low fee of entry (typically a license), but essentially the market functions as a commons. Similarly, in the Internet bazaar, anyone can pay the low fee of entry (in the form of their regular ISP access charge) but can then have free reign over the system.

Consider next a mall with only two stores. For anyone to sell goods in these stores, they must work with either ‘space provider’ to help them get access to the public. Even if it is assumed that everyone would have access to sell their goods at both stores, there’s a great chance that the price paid may influence the placement or presentation of the product. This is the vision of the non-commons network.

Returning to the Chairman’s arguments, I dispute both the fact that there is a market and that the past experience under existing laws is any indication of what’s to come in the future (the almost simultaneous DSL rate increase may be an indcator of this).

I would urge Chairman Majoras to consider these points along with the fact that, as a Government speaker, she has a responsibility to refrain from using her power to influence public debate in a manner that makes conclusions seem predetermined.

Music videos on YouTube

YouTube is courting the music video industry with the hopes of “in six to 12 months, maybe 18 months, to have every music video ever created up on YouTube,” (says co-founder Steve Chen). I haven’t made my fondness for YouTube a secret, and I specifically hope that they’ll be working with music video providers from around the world. The ability to have such a clear window into other cultures is one of the service’s greatest strengths (even when stretching the limits of copyright).

It also brings to mind the idea of “network effects,” where the more people gather around one technology the more popular it becomes. I think it’s reasonable to argue that people are more likely to think of particular sites for content, rather than an owners site. If this is the case, people might be more likely to go to YouTube for music videos rather than MTV, or to Google Videos for Government Archives content. Here, the network effect operates by people identifying a type of content with a service. The more popular that service becomes for that content type (regardless of ownership), the more individuals will gravitate there–even if that service has a lousy interface. Content owners may loose some of their control, but exposure may also be greatly increased.