[backstage] DRM does not work... what next?
I've been thinking about products and services like this for a while, and want to ponder this question to the backstage community... We've been talking about how DRM doesn't work, etc in other posts. Well lets just say for this thread that DRM doesn't work and it just turns consumers into against the content holder. ...What happens next? Here's some thoughts from me, Content producers adopt watermarking technologies? P2P streaming and Multicasting becomes the next big advance for content producers People start paying for real time or 0day access? Google and Yahoo start indexing torrent sites and offering services like sharetv.org Joost and Democracy adoption increases The portable video player and digital set top (appletv, xbmc, etc) markets blows up Torrent site uses slowly drops, as content producers use other online services Windows Home server (now you see how my last post relates) and similar products sales increase 10 fold over the next 3 year - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
On 12/06/07, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By definition something that can be infinitely replicated is NOT a scarce resource. I'm afraid that's not a tenable argument. You're thinking of the resource as the bits. In fact, the scarce resource is the creativity which made the first copy. So the only question that matters is how do you reward creativity? So - how, in your system when all media are free, do you reward creativity? Or do you believe that creativity is not worth monetary reward? Copyright exists to create a system of artificial scarcity, on the principle that creativity deserves reward as it's a major positive activity for society as a whole. Take away that system of artificial scarcity, and you'd better have a replacement that can do the job just as well. So please Andy- what's your replacement? Bare in mind that unless your replacement can substitute for the economic activity supported by copyright, you are going to reduce economic activity in general and thus make the world (literally) poorer.
RE: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
So - how, in your system when all media are free, do you reward creativity? Or do you believe that creativity is not worth monetary reward? Most of what the media produces isnt creative: it is formulaic and componentised in much the same way as any factory that assembles work on a production line. Of course, media production needs to be financed, but it isnt a scarce resource and it does warrant disproportionate returns. If the media was truly creative, it wouldnt struggle with how to make money from its work. It is a confusion on the part of the media folk to think that their work is somehow creative and unique. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Ian Betteridge Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 2:13 PM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info On 12/06/07, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By definition something that can be infinitely replicated is NOT a scarce resource. I'm afraid that's not a tenable argument. You're thinking of the resource as the bits. In fact, the scarce resource is the creativity which made the first copy. So the only question that matters is how do you reward creativity? So - how, in your system when all media are free, do you reward creativity? Or do you believe that creativity is not worth monetary reward? Copyright exists to create a system of artificial scarcity, on the principle that creativity deserves reward as it's a major positive activity for society as a whole. Take away that system of artificial scarcity, and you'd better have a replacement that can do the job just as well. So please Andy- what's your replacement? Bare in mind that unless your replacement can substitute for the economic activity supported by copyright, you are going to reduce economic activity in general and thus make the world (literally) poorer.
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
If the media was truly creative, it wouldn't struggle with how to make money from its work. It is a confusion on the part of the media folk to think that their work is somehow creative and unique. Here we go again with the there are plenty of other ways to make money / loads of other business models argument. No-one yet has mentioned one (and that includes that MP3 site that Dave C mentioned earlier - there's a good reason they can be pretty sure no-one's going to illegally share their music. Not with people they like anyway. Cheers, Rich. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
Here we go again with the there are plenty of other ways to make money / loads of other business models argument. Just for the sake of accuracy ... I didn't actually say either of the above. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Richard Lockwood Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 3:19 PM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info If the media was truly creative, it wouldn't struggle with how to make money from its work. It is a confusion on the part of the media folk to think that their work is somehow creative and unique. Here we go again with the there are plenty of other ways to make money / loads of other business models argument. No-one yet has mentioned one (and that includes that MP3 site that Dave C mentioned earlier - there's a good reason they can be pretty sure no-one's going to illegally share their music. Not with people they like anyway. Cheers, Rich. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
Oh. Right. Sorry. wouldn't struggle with how to make money from its work. I'm sure there's a distinction between that and would be able to come up with a different business model Cheers, Rich. Here we go again with the there are plenty of other ways to make money / loads of other business models argument. Just for the sake of accuracy ... I didn't actually say either of the above. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Richard Lockwood Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 3:19 PM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info If the media was truly creative, it wouldn't struggle with how to make money from its work. It is a confusion on the part of the media folk to think that their work is somehow creative and unique. Here we go again with the there are plenty of other ways to make money / loads of other business models argument. No-one yet has mentioned one (and that includes that MP3 site that Dave C mentioned earlier - there's a good reason they can be pretty sure no-one's going to illegally share their music. Not with people they like anyway. Cheers, Rich. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- SilverDisc Ltd is registered in England no. 2798073 Registered address: 4 Swallow Court, Kettering, Northamptonshire, NN15 6XX - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
Hey Rich ++ Oh. Right. Sorry. wouldn't struggle with how to make money from its work. I'm sure there's a distinction between that and would be able to come up with a different business model There is a distinction because I'm not saying that people would be able to come up with a different business model. I'm saying that the struggle to make money shows a lack of creative thinking. Maybe no one can come up with a way to make money (other than using DRM as a cosh) - though I think that's unlikely. The problem probably comes in media people expecting a disproportionate return on what they do. They think they're producing something scarce (but in truth everyone has some creative talent) but all they are producing is more of a long line of similar things that have gone before. Look at the BBC: at the moment it is running its pictures in Britain thing. http://www.bbc.co.uk/britain/ This has a lot of creative content from people all over the country... people who aren't getting paid for their creativity. A lot of what is being produced is as good/interesting as anything you see from the BBC itself or photography professionals. The vast majority of media content is just normal stuff: someone singing, someone playing music, someone acting, etc - it doesn't take much skill and it certainly is not a scare and valuable resource. My initial response was to the poster who said that creativity is scarce and therefore valuable My reply was to say it isn't scarce and therefore not valuable. There may be a few exceptions of true creativity ... but they are few and far between. Calvin Coolidge got it right in his shot across the bows to people who think they are somehow unique or special: Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not - the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race. Not arguing with you, but I wasn't saying there is a different business model out there. I was just pointing out that media creativity isn't a scarce/valuable resource ... if the original poster is claiming creative scarcity for the foundation of their argument, then their argument is sunk. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Richard Lockwood Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 3:41 PM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info Oh. Right. Sorry. wouldn't struggle with how to make money from its work. I'm sure there's a distinction between that and would be able to come up with a different business model Cheers, Rich. Here we go again with the there are plenty of other ways to make money / loads of other business models argument. Just for the sake of accuracy ... I didn't actually say either of the above. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Richard Lockwood Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 3:19 PM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info If the media was truly creative, it wouldn't struggle with how to make money from its work. It is a confusion on the part of the media folk to think that their work is somehow creative and unique. Here we go again with the there are plenty of other ways to make money / loads of other business models argument. No-one yet has mentioned one (and that includes that MP3 site that Dave C mentioned earlier - there's a good reason they can be pretty sure no-one's going to illegally share their music. Not with people they like anyway. Cheers, Rich. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- SilverDisc Ltd is registered in England no. 2798073 Registered address: 4 Swallow Court, Kettering, Northamptonshire, NN15 6XX - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] Test tube
http://www.youtube.com/testtube Ian Forrester This e-mail is: [ x ] private; [ ] ask first; [ ] bloggable Senior Producer, BBC Backstage BC5 C3, Media Village, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TP e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: +44 (0)2080083965 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] DRM does not work... what next?
On 6/14/07, Mr I Forrester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've been thinking about products and services like this for a while, and want to ponder this question to the backstage community... We've been talking about how DRM doesn't work, etc in other posts. Well lets just say for this thread that DRM doesn't work and it just turns consumers into against the content holder. ...What happens next? Creating an artificial scarcity of bits and charging for them is just a round about way of charging for a genuinely scarce resource: the time and effort of creators. Because the scarce bits model no longer works, creators will have to charge differently: - More directly, e.g. I will play may guitar and sing if you pay at the door - Less directly, e.g. I will tell people to buy your perfume if you pay me I don't think the BBC has these problems. It knows exactly where it's next 3,000 million pounds is coming from, and by extension, the guy who sticks the sink plungers on the front of Daleks knows he will be compensated for his work. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
On 14/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Most of what the media produces isn't creative: it is formulaic and componentised in much the same way as any factory that assembles work on a production line. Of course, media production needs to be financed, but it isn't a scarce resource and it does warrant disproportionate returns. I think that's your opinion, but it's not one that's shared by the market. After all, the appetite of consumers for content of all kinds has never been greater - people spend more and more time listening to music, watching video, reading web sites, interacting via MMORPGs (etc). Where 50 years ago, consuming media meant an hour reading a paper and two hours listening to the radio, now media consumption is pretty much constant outside of work contexts (and even there...). What's more, when people aren't consuming media, they're creating it - from camera phone images to blogging to YouTube. By saying that stuff's not creative, it's just repetitive you're basically saying that consumers of media are suckers and stupid. That's not an opinion I share. If you think, for example, that Coronation Street isn't creative I have serious doubts over your ability to judge what creativity is. You're betraying, basically, a highly snobbish attitude towards anything that's popular.
Re: [backstage] DRM does not work... what next?
Hi Ian, What happens next? .. well most that you listed below is already happening somewhere. In my opinion, this is what happens next.. Your whole office, and anybody interested in the positive future of the BBC, goes to the DG, or whomever now, and demands a budget to put as many pieces of content on the web as possible, under the banner of the BBC. You ask him/them to forget that he ever heard of GeoIP and DRM, and state that the web is now to be used to freely and openly fulfil the message on the BBC's coat of arms. Send out a press release to rights holders, and go ahead. If anyone wants to stop the process then they have a week to remove their content from the contractual status of the BBC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_BBC That the world needs the BBC is undeniable, and the web is now another place to distribute the content. Once you discover the true market place, you can then adjust your approach accordingly. As for rights holders, pull the other one. there is not one new unique creator on the planet who does not understand the benefit they could receive in this via the BBC. if they have a problem, then they can re-license their works to someone else, like ITV or Second Hand TV, as they do now. Just ask them. The majority of old rights holders, on the other hand, will always confuse the issue because they are in business, they do not normally simply create, they are also precious about the future, and their finances. even though, as you must be aware, the production costs are written off on first broadcast, and the license applies for only three years, in most cases. Not a very good deal for the financiers, especially if that is the public. If you wish, you could charge the customer outside of the UK, and would perhaps make more money than the complete income of the BBC already, even take a pound off the license fee and charge everyone worldwide £1 per month, or £10 per year, to watch via the net. Why shouldn't you compete with Realplayer or WMP, as they are US companies? Pass a royalty of that on to the creator, but don't get misled by the rights holder comments. Either way, if you trust your customer, and it works both ways, then they will always support you with their custom. The BBC can lead this cultural change, and must if it wishes to continue doing what it does best, worldwide. Stir up the nest as this present direction is useless to everyone. If you all begin now, then you will retain the upper hand I believe if you wait much longer then the actual creators will bypass your system of distribution, and the BBC will lose some more of its credibility as it loses its honest customers, resulting in economic Check Mate. :-) RichE On 14 Jun 2007, at 10:19, Mr I Forrester wrote: I've been thinking about products and services like this for a while, and want to ponder this question to the backstage community... We've been talking about how DRM doesn't work, etc in other posts. Well lets just say for this thread that DRM doesn't work and it just turns consumers into against the content holder. ...What happens next? Here's some thoughts from me, Content producers adopt watermarking technologies? P2P streaming and Multicasting becomes the next big advance for content producers People start paying for real time or 0day access? Google and Yahoo start indexing torrent sites and offering services like sharetv.org Joost and Democracy adoption increases The portable video player and digital set top (appletv, xbmc, etc) markets blows up Torrent site uses slowly drops, as content producers use other online services Windows Home server (now you see how my last post relates) and similar products sales increase 10 fold over the next 3 year - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/ mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail- archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] DRM does not work... what next?
On 14/06/07, Stephen Deasey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Creating an artificial scarcity of bits and charging for them is just a round about way of charging for a genuinely scarce resource: the time and effort of creators. Because the scarce bits model no longer works, creators will have to charge differently: - More directly, e.g. I will play may guitar and sing if you pay at the door - Less directly, e.g. I will tell people to buy your perfume if you pay me What's interesting is that there are multiple models for how this works, and I suspect there's no on size fits all approach. For example, one of the common examples of how a non-DRM system could work to pay for creativity in music is give away the recordings, make money on the tours. But you can also turn that around: for example, Apple is sponsoring free gigs, while selling recordings of the gigs (hopefully DRM free, although I suspect that will be down to which record companies are involved). The idea is that you're paying for the convenience of being able to download them from a trusted source, fast, and with the quality you want. You pay for ease-of-download.
Re: [backstage] DRM does not work... what next?
On 14/06/07, Mr I Forrester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...What happens next? Hopefully we will actually see some innovation! Depending on the kind of media there are other ways of making money other than charging for things that are copyable. Software: Charge for support Charge for bespoke software Charge for custom modifications. (actually software is doing the best in terms of giving content away). Music: Charge for Live performances/concerts Charge for physical merchandise Film: Charge the cinemas (but give the DVDs etc away) Or do like some of the community film projects (like the one mentioned on this list http://www.aswarmofangels.com/ ) Job done. Andy -- SELECT * FROM remarks WHERE witty=1 LIMIT 1 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
On 14/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I didn't say anything about Coronation Street or things being popular being uncreative – I'm saying it doesn't take anything exceptional to produce much of the media content we have today Community created drama series shows, which could be shared freely,started turning up years ago - Ian Forrester promoted them to me. Verycreative, enjoyable stuff. Any current examples, Ian? Obscurity is the biggest problem new businesses face. Popularitydelivers business opportunities. Everything that can be digitised canbe freely shared. The easier it is to share and reuse a work, the morepopular it will be. Restricted works will become less popular thanfreely distributable works. Apparently today's rights-holder production companies believe that DRMcan stop the mass market from sharing works. Probably not; simplymaking the works All Rights Reserved does enough damage to thepotential for the mass market, by criminalizing businesses that findways to monetise the Internet. (Consider, EMI could have boughtYouTube and been raking in the Adsense money.) Professionals tend to overestimate their scarcity value and have asnobby attitude to works made by semi-professionals. Richard Lockwoodhas just been a good example of this. The costs of production as wellas distribution are approaching zero, and a lot of semi-professionalsare making stuff they just couldn't make until now. Since it would befoolish to start out by restricting potential customers and remainingobscure, newly founded production companies will permit sharing in alegal way. Some Rights Reserved. The harder the incumbents push on DRM, the easier they make it for newpeople to trounce them in the market. -- Regards,Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I didn’t say anything about Coronation Street or things being popular being uncreative – I’m saying it doesn't take anything exceptional to produce much of the media content we have today. Most people could step into a media role and produce work that is as good as what we are served up with today. And that is simply stupid. It's rather like saying that any monkey with a copy of Dreamweaver can make a web site - it's true, to a degree, but to pretend that they could produce the same results as a professional who's spent years learning the craft involved is, frankly, dumb. To take my own little media role as an example. Do you think you could flat plan a magazine so it had pace? (For that matter, do you even know what a flat plan is?) Commission features that were interesting, exciting, and got people to read them? Write entertaining copy? Edit other people's copy to a high standard? Cut copy to fit layouts? Plan layouts that were original? Check the proofs, repeatedly? Check the finished layouts for colour balance and accuracy? Work with printers to ensure that they don't mess everything up? No? Of course you couldn't - at least, not to the same standard that I can having done it for 12 years. There's a horrible tendency amongst some parts of the tech community to denigrate the skills of others - and you're displaying a prime example of that, right now. The market tells me you're wrong: because people still pay for content, a huge amount of it. That fact is borne out by the growth of the net and by ordinary people having a say and doing their own things: a lot of the stuff read, listened to, watched, etc today isn’t being produced by “media people” it is being produced by regular people who now have access to tools which allow them to record and share their work. That, frankly, is nonsense. For example, more magazines are being sold in the UK than have ever been sold before: how does that fact fit into your view? Try an experiment. Take a copy of FHM. Now replace every picture in it with images from Flickr - but no professional photographers allowed. Do you think it will be the same quality? I'd really like to so you actually do this - because I know you couldn't. Oh, and try another little bit of research: How many of the Top Ten podcasts downloads in the UK on the iTunes Store are produced by these ordinary people and how many are produced by professional media outfits? Take a look, and come back with the answer for us, please. I happen to know what it is - and I suspect you won't like it. The ‘media’ may consider its skills as being scarce and valuable, but they’re deluded if they think that. So you keep saying, but you saying it doesn't make it true. The creative industries, excluding software and RD, contribute between 6-9% of the UK's total GDP, a figure that's consistently grown over the past 10 years. People are consuming MORE professional media, not less. And, to get back to my original point: Would you like to explain how all that economic activity is going to be replaced in your copyright-free Utopia? Or would you be prepared to shrink the UK economy by 6% because of your ideals? If so, would you like to explain to voters why they'll have to pay more tax - about 6% more on the basic rate - in order to make up the difference? Or would you like to explain to the 5-6% of the UK's workforce directly employed by the creative industries that they're out of a job, and should all try to compensate by doing lecture tours or something. To put it in another context: the amount that the creative industries contribute to the exchequer is about the same as the amount the government spends on higher education. Like to tell me how you're going to make up that shortfall? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
Dave Crossland wrote: Obscurity is the biggest problem new businesses face. Popularitydelivers business opportunities. Everything that can be digitised canbe freely shared. The easier it is to share and reuse a work, the morepopular it will be. Restricted works will become less popular thanfreely distributable works. Apparently today's rights-holder production companies believe that DRMcan stop the mass market from sharing works. Probably not; simplymaking the works All Rights Reserved does enough damage to thepotential for the mass market, by criminalizing businesses that findways to monetise the Internet. One might also say criminalising businesses who get rich off the creativity of others :) The point, to me, is simple: DRM doesn't work. It doesn't stop anyone taking your content for free. Therefore, work out business models which don't rely on DRM. People have proved via sites like Bleep.com that people will pay for un-DRM'd content, even if they could get the same stuff for free elsewhere. Unlike our friend Mr Zen, most people actually value what creative people do, and want to pay them for the pleasure they get from their work. People, really, are pretty great. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] DRM does not work... what next?
Andy wrote: On 14/06/07, Mr I Forrester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...What happens next? Hopefully we will actually see some innovation! I think there's actually a more pertinent question, which is this: Why are people currently paying for things that they could get for free? For example, why would anyone buy an un-DRM'd song from iTunes when, with about five minutes searching, they could download a pirate copy (possibly even better quality, if they go for FLAC)? Why do sites like Bleep, which sell un-DRM'd material, make money when all they are selling is bits that are available for nothing elsewhere? The answer, to me, is simple: people think that paying those who make things they take pleasure out of is perfectly fair, as long as it's easy to do and not overly expensive. People are basically honest, and agree with the idea that artists should get paid. So how about, instead of telling people that their industry is old fashioned and dying and they're all going to have to work in McDonalds, we give them some positive stories about how no DRM doesn't mean rampant piracy - in fact, it means people are more likely to actually pay for your work? Too often, all I see from the anti-DRM camp is basically snarky, dumb stuff which alienates content creators - the very people who need to be won over. Can we see some positivity, please? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] DRM does not work... what next?
People are basically honest, and agree with the idea that artists should get paid. LOL. Ha ha ha Ha ha ha Ha ha ha. I think there's actually a more pertinent question, which is this: Why are people currently paying for things that they could get for free? Even more pertinently, why are people stealing, suffering DRM, being electronic freedom fighters with Oggs etc when there is a wealth of freely available content already available. I don't spend a lot of time hunting for podcasts but I have gigs of great audio and video to consume. Yeah a few BBC but mostly not. I worry that the big media groups will finally get online but will just be clunky, expensive and irrelevent. I don't need more content so any big program libraries are just not appealing. Here's to cool ideas like Backstage !! As an aside, I wonder why the BBC can't be producing more original podcast content. For example, Grammar Girl - great show, dynamic and educational. Hardly has a Holywood budget. Why are the BBC shows so sanitized and sterile e.g. Digital Planet??!? They are hardly stretching the medium either and sound like recycled radio. To answer my own question, I think people mostly pirate stuff partly to feel like 'winning' or beating the system. Good old greed which you won't ever get rid of with any technology :-) Yours cynically, Davy -- Davy Mitchell Blog - http://www.latedecember.co.uk/sites/personal/davy/ Twitter - http://twitter.com/daftspaniel Skype - daftspaniel needgod.com - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
Apparently today's rights-holder production companies believe that
DRMcan stop the mass market from sharing works. Probably not;
simplymaking the works All Rights Reserved does enough damage to
thepotential for the mass market, by criminalizing businesses that
findways to monetise the Internet.
One might also say criminalising businesses who get rich off the
creativity of others :)
The point, to me, is simple: DRM doesn't work. It doesn't stop anyone
taking your content for free. Therefore, work out business models which
don't rely on DRM.
and, yes, the licence fee could be one of them - see Creative Archive
passim, or OFCOM's ideas for a new Public Service Publisher using a
Creative Commons commercial sharealike licencing model.
however, if the BBC were to adopt such a 'buy all rights in
perpetuity' model, it would mean making far, far fewer programmes,
since each programme would have to cost more (*much* more in many
cases) to compensate rights holders for the reduction in secondary
income from repeats, DVDs, overseas sales etc. We'd also probably lose
any stars the moment we made them (Gervais, etc) cos they could make
more than we could afford upfront commercially. And we'd lose all
sport. And the Olympics.
But hey, making far fewer programmes may not seem the end of the
world, since everyone only really likes a few programmes, and it's all
going on demand anyway so why worry about filling linear schedules,
right?
Then you realise that everyone != people like us, both in terms of the
programmes they like, and more importantly, in terms of their
likelihood to use the internet.
Everyone pays for the licence fee, and so everyone deserves to get
value from it.
So you need a wide range of programmes to cater for people's
increasingly fragmented tastes, and a variety of delivery methods to
cater for a range of tech capabilities.
41% of the UK population didn't use the Internet last month. We reckon
up to 20% of them *never* will. They'll pop their clogs before they
ever do anything on demand.
They pay for the BBC too.
Right now I find it hard to justify reducing the range of programmes
that 41% enjoy, just so the 5% of the population who regularly share
TV programmes over the internet can get *even more* value from the BBC
And incidentally, that 5% ('geeks like us') already gets far, far,
more value from the BBC than the 41% who are not online.
It's a balance. And we know that balance will shift over time,
possibly quite quickly once the current teenagers grow into adults.
For me, the long game is clear. You can now copy and share digital
media at near zero marginal cost. That's a miracle in terms of
increasing the value you can get out of *any* media, and in the long
term business models which make use of the ability to copy and share
will win.
The licence fee could be one such business model. But the argument is
about the balance between investing in linear vs making the most of
on demand.
The short game is also ruthlessly simple. The only way to get
programmes out and retain the current range and diversity of BBC
programmes is to use DRM. I might not like that, but I'll defend the
decision to do so in today's context.
Restating the case in terms of dogmatic absolutes isn't adding much to
the argument - dogmatic absolutists are very easy to pigeonhole and
ignore. Argue with ruthless logic, based on the core purposes of the
BBC.
If the BBC went non-DRM, bought out rights in perpetuity, thus made
fewer programmes, how could it do so on a way that meant 41% did not
lose out in order to give the 5% even more value?
And I hereby trump Ian's ORG badge-waving: the only person who
donated £5 a month to ORG before me was the guy developing their site.
;o)
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Re: [backstage] www.FreeTheBBC.info
Hi Tom! Thanks for the excellent post, lots to think about :-) On 15/06/07, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: if the BBC were to adopt such a 'buy all rights in perpetuity' model, it would mean making far, far fewer programmes, since each programme would have to cost more (*much* more in many cases) Can you provide references for how much more non-DRM publication costs compared to DRM publication? Can you tell anonymised stories of what ficticious rights holders told the BBC when the BBC approached them about non-DRM publication? :-) -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
RE: [backstage] DRM does not work... what next?
I think - as do many others, it seems - that people pirate because they want interoperability, convenience of consumption on their own terms, and the quality is often better to boot. Me and my housemates all pay for a TV license but I don't have a TV in my room (and the only person with a TV's gone home for the summer and taken it with him), I ended up downloading last week's episode of Doctor Who the same night it was broadcast (via everyone's favourite distribution platform, bittorrent) because it didn't appear on iPlayer until 24 hours later. I watched it, and enjoyed it - the quality was better (in both bitrate and resolution) than the BBC's offering (because I did download both to compare), it was just an xvid-encoded AVI so I could watch it on my desktop and my laptop (as opposed to the DRM-laden WMV which I can only watch on my laptop). I've downloaded music from allofmp3 in the past because it's just so convenient. Why can't the industries understand that people, above all else, value convenience? I wanted to get another copy of an album I had a long time ago but since mislaid (though I know it's around somewhere, probably scratched to buggery). Jumped onto AOMP3, got a FLAC copy of it. Perfect. Other stuff I've downloaded in MP3 format, in a quality level I've decided upon to balance the cost versus quality. The movie and music industries should be thinking of rolling out a system exactly like this - the consumer has all the choice, they can choose from either popular favourite formats or custom-tailor their order. There's no variable charges, it's all just unit-priced and higher quality costs more, defined by filesize (and maybe a static surcharge if it's brand new or not back-catalogue). iTunes to me feels very much like this idea but mk. 1, like Apple's getting the industry used to this way of thinking and will eventually push for a more user-centric content delivery system like AllOfMP3's. I've said it before, I'll say it again - the labels need to embrace the customer. Treat them as potential investors, not criminals, offer them a friendly, versatile solution which offers their choice of music via an intuitive interface in their choice of formats - no DRM, of course - and make it fairly priced. Digital music is still not fairly priced. People will then buy it - because it's just not worth the effort of downloading a hokey copy and taking the risk of all those viruses, dodgy quality copies, getting a Dear John letter from your ISP - because if the content is priced that attractively, it's a no-brainer. What you'll get from that is the people who are totally honest will buy as much as they used to, save a bit of money and their behaviours won't change; people who would buy their favourite stuff but borrow/copy/download other stuff will download more and maybe share a bit but share less because they've paid for it; people who would just copy or borrow everything will carry on regardless. Overall? A net gain. You can't change poeples' habits of a lifetime. I'm dead serious - give people the flexibility and choice to consume exactly how they want and they will flock to it - in their droves. It frustrates me that the media industries are so inexplicably stuck in their ways - even if they claim to be embracing digital media - that they are either scared to break away from the pack and try something different or they are pressuring (or being pressured by others) to carry on with the current broken solution of DRM and proprietary foramts, systems... Only in a bizarre situation like this would you get a software and DRM vendor where media encoded in their own PlaysForSure DRM format doesn't actually play on their first hardware digital music player. Throwing the whole idea of consumers as untrustworthy thieves out the window and reestablishing the bond of trust between consumers and providers by giving them the choice to consume media in the formats they want for a reasonable, easy-to-understand price. Think about it - the music label gets money from the purchase if I buy an album in FLAC format, I burn it to CDR and snap - instant original quality album for my car, keep the FLACs on my PC and my MP3 player (because it can play FLAC files in realtime) or just transcode them to MP3. The labels all get an amount from the blank CD tax which is charged regardless, which is nice. I would do the same if I bought the album, but it costs the label less if I do the digital route and buy the FLACs. So what if they can't tell how many times I've played the album? It shouldn't matter. So what if I burnt a copy for my friend? I'd do that if I had the CD anyway. It might even make him want to get a copy of the official artworked album. It might not, but if he isn't treated with condescension by the label he's probably more likely to think positively about doing so because he knows that if he does buy a copy in digital format, he'll be able to do exactly what he would otherwise if he bought a physical
