[Nettime-bold] Fwd: TidBITS#602/22-Oct-01

[richard barbrook <richard@hrc.wmin.ac.uk>]

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>Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 21:00:00 -0700
>From: TidBITS Editors <editors@tidbits.com>
>Subject: TidBITS#602/22-Oct-01
>To: tidbits@tidbits.com (TidBITS Distribution)
>Reply-To: "TidBITS Editors" <editors@tidbits.com>
>
>TidBITS#602/22-Oct-01
>=====================

[snip]

>Steal This Essay 1: Content Is a Pure Public Good
>-------------------------------------------------
>  by Dan Kohn
>
>  Steal this essay, or, why these sorts of essays represent the
>  future of all publishing. Hint: I'm not getting paid for them.
>
>   "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."
>     - A.J. Liebling
>
>  If you or anyone you know has ever or will ever produce content
>  (writing, music, video, etc.) and hopes to get paid for it, you
>  should be afraid.
>
>  To see why, start by downloading (for free, of course) one of the
>  numerous peer-to-peer file sharing systems such as Aimster,
>  LimeWire, and eDonkey2000 that have emerged hydra-like to take the
>  place of Napster, whose head was cut off this spring by the
>  Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). You will find
>  that much the same selection of MP3 music that was on Napster is
>  still available for free, as well as being accompanied by more and
>  more movies ("ripped" directly from DVDs), and nearly all other
>  forms of content, from Shakespeare's works to hard core adult
>  materials.
>
><http://www.aimster.com/>
><http://www.limewire.com/>
><http://www.edonkey2000.com/>
><http://www.napster.com/>
><http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1206>
>
>  What you will not find - even if you are the RIAA - is anyone to
>  sue. Because unlike Napster, there are no companies underlying the
>  software infrastructure, no servers to confiscate, no officers on
>  whom to serve papers. The next generation of peer-to-peer clients
>  relies on no central infrastructure whatsoever, and is being
>  developed by a loose knit group of developers spread around the
>  world, all donating their significant efforts without any real
>  hope of getting paid for their work. All of the developers are men
>  - or teenage boys - and though not following the typical societal
>  track toward prestige, they are just as competitive as any rival
>  athletes or entrepreneurs. Many are distributing their software as
>  open source, so anyone else can fix bugs and make improvements.
>  What this means is not just that the RIAA is applying makeup to
>  the corpse of the music industry as we've known it. In fact, it
>  heralds an even larger change about how all content is created and
>  distributed, and raises serious questions as to whether content
>  creators (such as the author of this essay) will ever be
>  compensated for our work.
>
>  Read a few dozen articles by top technology analysts, and it is
>  often difficult to find one that doesn't breathlessly declare how
>  this or that new technology represents a sea change, an inflection
>  point, or the end of history. In fact, while the Internet's growth
>  rates have been quite high, other technologies such as radio and
>  gas cooking have actually been adopted faster. It may be, though,
>  that all of the hype surrounding the digital duplication and
>  peer-to-peer distribution of content actually underestimates the
>  impact on the authors and publishers of music, movies, and written
>  works.
>
>  Put simply, in a world where there are essentially no costs to
>  replicate content and it is effectively impossible to stop anyone
>  from doing so at will, the current economic model underpinning
>  content creation will be dead. Despite the protestations of
>  lawyers, (certain) rock bands, and legislatures (all on the same
>  losing side, oddly enough), we are entering that brave new world.
>
>  If, as this hard technology determinist viewpoint suggests,
>  content is destined to be free - i.e., the content creators and
>  publishers will not be directly compensated the way they are today
>  when you make a purchase from your local CD store - then the real
>  question is what system could replace the content compensation
>  system that has worked quite well for the last 300 years. However,
>  implementing revenue models for infinitely redistributable goods
>  is not an entirely novel question, and there are several economic
>  models that can support the creation of content. What there may
>  not be is _enough_ revenue to support the publishers of that
>  content in addition to the authors, which helps explain why the
>  RIAA is so eager to thwart digital distribution. When an ecosystem
>  undergoes severe environmental changes, certain organisms that
>  were previously essential - like the cyanobacteria that originally
>  converted carbon dioxide to oxygen, or the record companies'
>  A&R men - may recede to minor ecological niches.
>
>  Economists have a term for what digital goods have become. Items
>  are "nonrival" when we can all make use of them without anyone
>  having to give them up. If I copy your CD, you're none the worse
>  for it (nonrival), but if I steal your car, you will probably be
>  upset (rival). Goods are "nonexcludable" when it becomes
>  impractical to stop everyone from making use of the item, once one
>  person can. It is infeasible, for instance, to stop additional
>  viewers of broadcast television (nonexcludable), while it is very
>  feasible to stop additional moviegoers from entering a theater
>  (excludable). Economists call nonrival, nonexcludable items "pure
>  public goods," although the name does not imply that public goods
>  can be provided only by the government.
>
>  Lighthouses are a classic pure public good. They are nonrival
>  because each additional ship does not reduce the light available
>  to the others. They are nonexcludable because any ship sailing by
>  can see them. There are cases in New England two centuries ago of
>  shipping guilds building privately managed lighthouses, even
>  though the services couldn't be withheld from non-members. Most
>  medical research and nearly all basic scientific research today is
>  a pure public good, although for exactly this reason it is often
>  financed (at least indirectly) by the government. Other textbook
>  public goods are national defense, mosquito control, and public
>  radio. In each case, the cost of providing the item to one
>  consumer is the same as providing it to any number of consumers
>  (nonrival), and it is impractical to stop anyone from making use
>  of the good (nonexcludable). The table below provides some
>  examples.
>
>            |  EXCLUDABLE        |  NONEXCLUDABLE
> -----------+--------------------+--------------------------------
> RIVAL      |  car, Walkman      |  unmanaged fishing rights
> -----------+--------------------+--------------------------------
> NONRIVAL   |  movie in a movie  |  lighthouses, national defense,
>            |  theater, concert  |  mosquito control
>            |  in a large hall   |
>
>  If content is becoming a pure public good, it will necessitate a
>  radical rethinking of the recording industry's claim that copying
>  content is stealing. We as a society react very differently toward
>  the unpaid use of rival versus nonrival goods. Think of the
>  punishment inflicted, for example, on those who steal cars versus
>  those who listen to public radio without contributing to the fund
>  drives. Of course, whether a good is rival or not is beside the
>  point if you can successfully exclude people who don't pay. (Ask
>  Microsoft, whose cost for selling one copy of Office is
>  approximately the same as selling 100 million copies (nonrival),
>  but which has used informant tactics and large legal penalties to
>  make their software very excludable, at least for businesses.)
>
>  The lawyers representing the recording and movie industry are well
>  aware of the threat to their business models of digital content,
>  and they believe they have already developed the answer:
>  encryption. Encryption represents the music industry's last, best
>  hope of maintaining their product as excludable. Why they are
>  wrong, and content protection is doomed to failure, will have to
>  wait for the next essay.
>
>  [Dan Kohn is a General Partner with Skymoon Ventures. His writings
>  are announced through <dankohn-subscribe@yahoogroups.com> and can
>  be discussed through <dankohn-discuss-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>.]
>
><http://www.dankohn.com/>
><http://www.skymoonventures.com/>
>
>
>
>$$
>
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   Jeremy Quinn                                           Karma Divers
                                                       webSpace Design
                                            HyperMedia Research Centre

   <mailto:sharkbait@mac.com>     		 <http://www.media.demon.co.uk>
   <phone:+44.[0].20.7737.6831>             <pager:jermq@vizzavi.net>

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