So the Supreme Court ruled that Grokster could be sued. Whether they'll win or lose in court is another issue.
Personally, I think this will be good for file sharing in the long term. In all the history of this sort of thing, its become immediately obvious that people actually want to be legal.
Despite the ability to copy tapes most people buy so overall, VCRs generate millions for the Studios every year.
iTunes is now a huge percentage of the online music both free and paid.
When they started encrypting satellite broadcasts, sales of big satellite dishes actually exploded, because you could now watch legally.
I was going to write this up as a business plan someday and try to get VC money, but here goes, this is how you completely change the music, movie and TV business for the better:
Start by adding some digital rights information to existing files, and build into the playback software someplace you can easily license the file. Now, and here's the kicker, kick back some percentage of the revenue ($.02 as an example) to the source of the file.
Think podcasts are big? What if you could extract all the digital rights info from a podcast and buy the song right then? Or buy a song right off of one of the satellite radios? Or listen to a song/album review and then buy the song? For podcasts it would be really easy, just make a rule that if more then 50% of the content is something other then the current file that you can listen to that portion of the content for free. So for a podcast with 3 songs plus commentary, each song would be 33% or less of the total size, enabling free play.
You've now leveraged all the people who are willing to share their music as salesmen, and compensated them in some small way. So by doing that, you can now lower prices, because at that point, the digital right you're selling is pure profit.
So if all the file sharing networks moved to this model, I think they would explode as people would feel OK both about sharing, and they would be compensated for it.
Comments (6)
The most interesting thing about this story is the fatc of what Joseph Shumpeter argued was “creative destruction”. Capitalism is now reliant on the state to restrict “freemarkets” because tecvhnology is disabling firms ability to profit. Firms can no longer have a monopoly of enjoying the fruits of CDs DVDs and such because technology allows their perfect dulivcation. So now , the State makes some firms illegal because they utilize the new productive capacity. ernie
Posted by ernie | June 28, 2005 11:58 AM
Posted on June 28, 2005 11:58
Well, we’ve never had “capitalism” in this country, we’ve always had “Democratic Capitalism”, an oxymoron. I think that’s why our system actually works…perhaps “Democratic Communism” would work too…
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June 28, 2005 12:41 PM
Posted on June 28, 2005 12:41
democratic communism could also be called anarcho-syndicalism, the idea being that the means of production are democratically controlled through worker councils which are confederated with other such entities.
democratic capitalsim is an oxymoron for all IFIs and MNCs are essentially monarchist in structure. It would be difficult for those who accept the inevitablity in the latter to support the former. sure, the US votes, but we are lucky if half the people participate and possible candidates are restricted to those who support corporate dominance of the public sphere…gee you sure dont here this argument on corproate governed television do ya?
ernie
Posted by ernie | July 1, 2005 9:01 AM
Posted on July 1, 2005 09:01
If I remember correctly my history of the utopian societies in the early US, I think the anarcho-syndicalist were the most successful. The most successful of all had a concept of money, but it was based on hours of work.
Actually, I have heard that argument on corporate governed television.
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July 1, 2005 9:20 AM
Posted on July 1, 2005 09:20
you are right, modern thinkers alonfg this trend are mike alberts/robin Hannels parecon. Itis still ownership among those who work, but the enterprises are not built ofr profit, but for benefit for those who actually labored. it holds the idea, like marx, that labor is value, but includes the natural world (resources and energy) as being value in themselves not to be squandered. our current economy thinks profit is value and the accumulation of financial capital is the primary goal…not much else really matters.
ernie
Posted by ernie | July 2, 2005 11:15 AM
Posted on July 2, 2005 11:15
PeerImpact is revving up to do what you’re saying. We’ll see how well it works.
Posted by Jeremy | September 6, 2005 2:59 PM
Posted on September 6, 2005 14:59