Category: Media / Sociology

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.

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.

Technological or social solutions

John Tierney writes in today’s Times about a pilot screening program at Dulles Airport (sorry, TimesSelect only). Rather than bog everyone down in long lines, screeners at Dulles speed everyone through while looking at individuals for “unusual behavior like sweating, rigid posture, clenched fists.” The results?

The screeners were looking for telltale body language of someone trying too hard to act natural. When they spotted it, they singled out that person for interrogation, a pat-down and a luggage search. The screeners caught no terrorists, but they consistently found people with something to hide, often a forged visa, a stolen airline ticket, drugs or other smuggled goods.

Tierney points out that workable solutions such as this should be examined (they aren’t), and despite my predilection for technology, I’m inclined to agree. There are machines like a “puffer” which may be able to detect trace explosives, but these and other machines are expensive, prone to error, and somewhat violating of personal privacy. Wouldn’t it be amazing if the answer to our problems of secure air travel was right under our nose: people who are trained in watching people (not their stuff).

Giving individual people such power may present some troubling issues along the lines of profiling, but it’s an option that’s at least worth a try.

Google’s Library

In case you don’t have the time to read Battalle’s The Search, a pretty good substitute might be an article in today’s Washington Post (Search Me?). The article discusses a number of issues around Google’s book project which got me thinking: could a bit of creative lawyering and calling Google a “library” be a possible escape for the project’s leagal liability. The point is made that:

To index the Web, Google first sends out software programs called “crawlers” that explore the online universe, link by link, making copies of every site they find — just as Book Search makes a digital copy of every book it can lay its hands on. Web sites are protected by copyright, so if you don’t want your site indexed by Google and its search brethren, you can “opt out,” usually by employing a nifty technological watchdog (a file called robots.txt) that tells search engines to bug off.
Ditto for books, Google argues: Publishers and authors can opt out by informing Google that they don’t want their books scanned and made searchable.

It looks as though the “transformative use” argument is being made, but I wonder if this could be extended to the notion that, much like a traditional library, all Google is doing is collecting material and making it available for a limited public use (a few pages, as opposed to a limited-time loan). I’m not saying that this argument is necessarily persuasive, or even right, but rather creating an analogy between a data warehouse and a physical book warehouse. As it is, copyrights basis in “the copy” pretty much makes the argument untenable (but this basis is up for debate).

…in other stories grabbing my attention today

Michael Geist is picking up on the emerging Blackboard v D2L patent fight. Not exactly sure what to make of this yet, as a large part of my job involves working with D2L software (I’ll note, for one of its earliest and largest clients). For more, keep an eye on Michael Feldstein’s blog.

Finally, the Times has an article about Paparazzi 2.0, where anyone with a cell camera stands to profit from selling quick pics to tabloids. Now celebrity privacy can be added to the list of areas of media law individuals may need to “be more aware of” in the world of anybody-can-publish (something Ashley Simpson knows well). It appears in at least these cases, there are still organizational checks within news and tabloid firms to keep the issue from falling totally on a photographer.

Finally finally, here’s a good note on “Astroturfing 2.0” from Ars. If my old pro-market comment-ers on net neutrality were in fact involved in this, they might like to know that their efforts were appreciated in that they really forced me to further examine and clarify my own views. If they were legitimately commenting–thanks for the same reason!