copyright will kill disney, or disney will kill copyright.

Disney is the greatest company in the world, when it comes to turning creative content in to money. You can argue, but I’ve only got to say: Miley Cyrus, Beauty and the Beast, High School Musical, and you more or less have to admit that creating massively influential cultural touchstones / money factories is what Disney does best.

I’ve recently become convinced that Disney’s reliance on strong copyright is going to be it’s downfall.

Until recently, things worked pretty simply. You would create content, and then exchange it for money. We can get more specific and discuss distribution, advertising, investment, but mostly, it came down to that singular exchange: a piece of culture would be created, and then sold, to individuals and groups, again and again. As a bonus, you could also create additional related products, to be exchanged for money. If we’re talking about music, it would be posters, concerts, tshirts, limited edition packaging, stickers, etc. If we’re talking about movies, it would be toys, clothing, games, special edition books and dvds, etc.

Many of these things were just clever or attractive repackaging of the content itself. But that packaging was still important.

Things have changed, because the concept of distribution has changed. Access is simple, no one is comfortable with operating on your schedule, and, crucially, piracy has made content free. Not packaging, not experience, not perfectly, but free. It’s easier to download an album than listen to the band on the radio, and it’s easier to download an album than buy it online, if you use certain legal download services (looking at you, PureTracks).

The new map of this experience? Content is released, in hopes to build interest. You can charge for it, sure, but this isn’t where the real money comes from. When interests develops, if you are lucky it can bring loyalty, or a sense of debt. That interest means that people will buy your products, whether they are packaged content, or merchandise, or an experience.

The reality of creativity as business is that ROI has moved further downstream. It’s not money for album, or money for movie anymore. It’s non-rival (digital) content for consideration, and then an exchange of money for a rival good, something tactile, something to be displayed and appreciated.

Strong copyright is now a tool for alienating your audience, and complicating the task of building that key interest. Your core creative products are best considered advertising for the things that really make money. The physical products that can’t be duplicated perfectly, that can’t be supplanted by ‘good enough’ copies.

This isn’t to disparage the importance of the creative arts that companies like Disney create. It makes them more important. Movies, television and music will have to be so good that they inspire consumers to associate themselves with the content in real life. My nephew went to sleep last night in Lightning McQueen pyjamas, and woke up to put on a Lightning McQueen tshirt. This wouldn’t have happened if Cars wasn’t so impressive for him that the only toys he wants are inspired by the movie. The film itself may have earned, total $100 from my family, even counting DVD sales and individual movie tickets. The merchandise has earned thousands, without exaggeration.

Disney has the reach, the intellectual properties, and the tools necessary to restructure a business that is based on the new content/profit map. They can clearly influence culture – look at how successful the company has been when people had to pay for the content. Make it free now, and profit. Copyright used to work. Now it’s only standing between you, and the collective wallet of your audience.

object vs content: direct conflict.

Intellectual Property companies (Recording Industry, Film Industry, etc) want to have their cake and eat it too.  At the core, they only really have two options: they can argue that the content they sell is worth money (digital information), or they can argue the format they sell is the element with value (CDs, DVDs, Theatre tickets. etc).  

They have been, unilaterally, claiming both.

If the value comes from the intellectual property, there is almost an argument for the criminalization of filesharing.  Said criminalization would still be horribly detrimental to both culture and business, but at least an argument could be made.  Frankly, I could almost live with this: if purchasing a CD meant I was allowed to play with the content in any way, in any format I wanted, as long as I did not create a rival (key word) commercial offering that hurt sales of the original intellectual property, I would buy a lot more music and movies.

If the value comes from the format the information is presented in, then any claim on infinitely copyable digital information is ludicrous - a downloaded mp3 isn't in competition with a CD, which will always be infinitely more 'real' and 'complete', incorporating the form, packaging and information that the creator intended.  Similarly, no one who argues that the object / experience is the value should care about bootlegged theatrical releases - the product is the theatre experience, not a poorly shot digital capture of the film.

You can believe one of these things, but not both.  Someone who argues that intellectual property is a protected right, and the source of all value can't justify trying to charge you 5 times for the same song, in CD, mp3, ringtone, FLAC, and Pro Tools formats.  Someone who argues that the packaging, the formatting is the key element of value shouldn't care if you interact with the content independent of it's format.

The fact that the IP obsessed industries have been doing both is a clear indicator that they either haven't thought this through in the least, or, as I assume, that they are grasping as straws to keep the stock value up until the current crop of executives can retire.

open standards vs. proprietary formats.

I don't buy clothes online.  I love clothes, and buying things online is cheaper and more efficient, generally.  But, sizes aren't standard, and I need my clothes to fit me properly.  So, generally, I buy things in person.  Sizes could easily be standard, but a mixture of appeals to vanity, and lack of rigorous agreed-upon meanings, is the current system.

It's the same deal with web browsers, as came up in a recent conversation.  They don't all read the same code in the same way.  A page might be programmed to say one thing, but when you get there, you see another.  On a wider scale, you can see why this would appeal to some companies - a closed process, or a proprietary one, combined with other market advantages (popularity, some unmatched feature) can equal dominance.  This is the same logic as one retailer making size 40 jeans labelled 34.

But when everyone does it, and there is a wide marketplace of comparable products each using the same system with different meanings, the industry in question is inherently fragmented.  This can result in greater brand loyalty, but only as a form of stockholm syndrome.

Proprietary systems make you, and your competitors wrong at least some of the time.  There's no incompatibility that doesn't go both ways.

So I have to go into the store to buy my pants.  Which means I keep buying my pants from the same places, because there is less inscentive to find new places, and have to learn the meanings behind each label there.

Open standards only seem like a bad idea if you can't understand the basic tenet of enlightened self interest - making your entire industry / ecosystem / world better inevitably makes things better for you.  It also lets you compete on something other than entrenched market position, which is always transient.

why can't i be ripped off by somewhere reputable.

Oh look, a year old blog post of mine has be re-published somewhere.

To be fair, I don't have a specific problem as long as there's reasonable attribution (which there isn't, in this case). I don't hoard ideas, generally. But I'd like at least a link and my real name if you're going to use my material to draw attention to your work.

Of course, this got me thinking about my own piratical actions. I'll probably blog about that later on today.

define revolutionary: Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV

The best way I can find to explain why Trent Reznor's method of releasing Ghosts I-IV is so important, is to adapt the model to another, related industry.

Imagine if, when Iron Man comes out in May, you could buy it online at midnight. Let's assume that, for the sake of this thought experiment, you get charged the full price of the DVD release for this purchase.

Now imagine that buying the film allowed you to download it in every format you could ever want, ensuring it would play on any PMP, iPod or computer, right away. Imagine that this download came with wallpapers, a soundtrack, production stills, all open for you to play with (but not for monetary reward) and all without intruding watermarks ruining them for use as wallpaper or avatars. Imagine that this purchase came with a ticket to see the movie in theatres, redeemable at any major chain.

And then imagine 2 or 3 months down the road (but preferably as soon as plausible), the DVD would arrive at your door, with special features that make it an entirely new experience.

What the release of Ghosts I-IV did was point out that information wants to be free not in terms of free beer, but in terms of free speech, and more importantly in terms of free from physical restraint. This doesn't even necessarily mean no DRM, even though it should. Purchasing something can't just be about the content anymore, because content is available free of charge via piracy. Trent Reznor realised that his customers are his fans. And what they want is to first enjoy the music as soon as possible, then be given context to engage with, then be rewarded for loyalty (shown by paying) by being given a physical product that expands upon the instant gratification of the download package. Ghosts wasn't sold as an experience that was inferior to that provided by piracy - it was sold as an experience that could not be fully replicated by piracy, or by any traditional retail model. I paid for that experience happily, as did several other people I know who wouldn't buy a CD normally.

If it wasn't for the collapse of the infrastructure supporting this idea, I think more people would have seen it for what it was - a complete acceptance than staggering release, and expecting people to abide by time delays and scarcities that information technology has made irrelevant won't work. The population of consumers is getting smarter about how they interact with media, and the barriers for entry are getting lower.

Nine Inch Nails offered fans, and the curious, a scheme that could not be replicated by a download, while still maintaining the best part of the (admittedly near-perfect) piracy experience. This is how a free market should work. Adapting to the reality of an industry, rather than attempting to legislate that time go backwards.

This idea can be traced back to a conversation with animation wizard Randeep Katari, a good friend of the broken gentleman.

memo to trent reznor (2)

I paid for the 2-disc set. I was happy to do it.

What I'm not happy about is having to try a dozen times to download the file I just paid for. It's still not working, so I've sent an email to the support staff, hopefully they can help me.

What kills me isn't that the download doesn't work. Or even that shipping and handling more than doubled the $10 price for the package. What bothers me is that the idea is so, so much better than anything else that's been tried in music distribution. What bothers me is how desperately I'd love to see it succeed. And how, to be honest, shocking it is that the absurd traffic that is ruining this experiment wasn't planned for - NIN has one of the largest, and most active, fan communities online. Did anyone think this wasn't going to be brutally hard on the infrastructure?

The point I always try to make about music isn't that free is impossible to compete with, but rather that ignoring price, illegal downloads are almost always a superior product. At last check there are nearly 3000 people seeding this album I paid for, and cannot listen to, on bittorrent. 10 dollars is reasonable, assuming the experience exceeds the one available for nothing.

Again, I don't want to crap on this model of distribution. It convinced me to pay, and is, in my opinion, a near-perfect next step from the 'Radiohead' model that had me dancing in the aisles. But if you can't compete on price, you have to compete on experience. The three-plus hours I've spent attempting to pay for, and receive, this album is not a competitive experience.

That said, I'm glad I've paid to support talented artists, an innovative delivery system, and creative commons licensed work.

commodification of street art.

Now firmly entrenched as the graffiti artist most lauded by the fine arts crowd, Banksy raises an interesting point. While I can understand the rising auction prices of his work, all rooted in the street art he made his name with, I'm more interested in the speed with which his rise in stature has connected directly with changing attitudes towards his (still illegal) graf pieces.

At least two times that I know of, Banksy's work has been removed from it's original home (a public object) and auctioned off for notable amounts of money. This in and of itself doesn't bother me. My issue is with the forced commodification of something that Banksy's own work seems to classify as a means of fighting back for a chunk of public space. When that weapon can get cut or chiseled free, and then becomes a commercial object despite the wishes of the creator, that becomes something of a problem for me.

The same thing happened recently with Murakami taking a tagged Murakami billboard, and adding it to his collection.

I'm not saying I'm surprised, or that I don't understand the motivations, but at the same time, this seems reprehensible to me. The value in these pieces, in my opinion, is as a public good. Graffiti serves the commons, whether as inspiration, decoration, or call to arms. I have no issue with a graf artist working for corporate interests, but I have a problem with a public good being turned into a private one for profit.

In short, this is turning graf into what I considered it the antithesis of - advertising - is as much as it takes a public good (space, graf) and turns it into a private one (ads, auction fodder).

The thing is, objectively, there is little difference in this, than in getting an artist to paint on a branded pair of shoes, or bag. So I suppose this was inevitable, although it seems doomed to strip the whole enterprise of meaning.

radiohead gets it.

I should be sleeping. I have to wake up in a little over 6 hours. But, there are things afoot. Things that cause bliss.

Thom Yorke and Company UNDERSTAND.

I've been rambling for a little less than a year about the separation between object and content. In relation to the music business, the point is simple: somewhere along the way, everyone forgot that the business was based on selling music, and assumed it was based on selling plastic discs. This more or less made sense when the plastic disc was the only method of moving music. Insert one massive digital revolution, and voila, an industry that thinks selling music means selling slabs of plastic begins to fail horribly.

The two best ways to deal with the separation between object and content in the music business are fairly simple: 1) recognise that to be worth money, you better have a slab of plastic that offers value beyond just the music, and 2) acknowledge that the music is really just a promotional tool for selling other, related products (slabs of plastic, tshirts, concert tickets, dvds, ringtones, etc.)

So what does radiohead to, when not tied to any old-distribution label paradigm?

They offer the album for sale, on the web, in a glorious package. 2 discs, vinyl, attractive packaging that realises the product IS A SLAB OF PLASTIC, and makes it the sexiest plastic they can. At the same time, they make digital downloads available for free to anyone who buys the meatspace version of the record.

The real brilliant move? The digital download by itself is available for a price of you-call-it. By you call it, I mean radiohead lets you add the album to your outbox from the exclusive retailer, and you get to decide how much it costs.

Not only is this invaluable research for a band in control of it's own pricing and sales, it provides a reasonable, DRM free option for sane consumers. As someone who actually downloads albums they already own, just for simplicity, this speaks volumes. Radiohead UNDERSTANDS, better than any other album release has ever indicated, that music cannot be sold as though it is still contained in plastic slabs.

This is the one record no one can justifiably download illegally. They are meeting you so far past half-way that you can't really bitch. At the very least, give the the data. Let them know you want it free, or for a cent, or what have you.

Several months ago, I was ecstatic when the iTunes music store began selling DRM free (sorta) downloads. That was premature, and I apologise. Assuming this isn't a hoax, radiohead have just (again) knocked the music industry on it's ass. It's so rare to see innovation even musically, but this group of consistent innovators are trying something legitimately new, and inarguably well-informed.

Shall we make it worth their while?

[this is ignoring the fact the album comes out in 10 days, and they have created nearly unlimited press just by setting a tight deadline, and doing something logical, but unheard of.]

my god, steps forward.

This is obviously the best news I have had in a very long time.

Not because I'm going to start buying music from iTunes in a large volume, but because it is, to my mind, the first indication that a major player in the music industry has made that they employ even a single person who understands the changing game. DRM free music is the first step towards acknowledging the object / content distinction.

By this I mean (if I can remember the paper I wrote last term) that technology has progressed to the point where an understanding of product as a unified object / content creation is obsolete. Music isn't a CD, or even a file anymore. It's a reproducible, object mobile entity. DRM is, to me, and attempt to enforce the obsolete unity of object and content. The idea is to keep a CD a CD, and not a music distribution tool, to be played with to the users content. This means, basically, that the music industry is finally admitting that the expectation that consumers will buy one version of a song for a CD player, another for an iPod, and one more for their zune, is insane.

And it is insane. It's so insane that the only way to keep the threat working is nuisance lawsuits that greatly inflate the supposed value of the content, or the 'intellectual property'. Luckily, someone at Apple (who was probably convinced my Norway), convinced someone at EMI, that the best way to reduce piracy is to stop selling your customers broken products.

This is a very, very good day for anyone who has been looking rationally at the future of creative products in our society, at the flaws in copyright, and at the mounting subjugation of technology and innovation to archaic and obsolete business models.

Also, another brilliant strategic move on the part of Apple, somehow managing to position itself yet again as the little guy, fighting against the system for the people, despite it's position as a dominant player is the sales of DRM burdened content online. I am in awe, as always, at how ascending into ubiquity has only caused this minimal amount of backlash for a company that defined itself by asking you to 'think different'.