replacing the stick with a carrot levy (another music industry proposal)

The article starts out painting the current picture of the music industry and the perils it has faced and is still facing. I first took issue with disingenuous comments like litigation was their only option because “Napster et al were unwilling to discuss a viable business plan that would fairly compensate all stakeholders”. It then goes on to admit that the stick approach had been favoured in the past by the music industry that it was always litigation as opposed to the license but maybe it is time to explore the options that the carrot may present. It talks about persuading unlicensed content sites to the negotiating table but it is predominately about the old successful models and how good they were and that people really like our stuff and now because of the internet they consume so much more. Then it gets interesting when he starts talking about the pipes that deliver us that content and how they are currently neutral but should that really be the way it should be. He acknowledges that people don’t want to pay, but they are using their stuff and somebody has to pay. This is where it turns nasty and suddenly it’s the entire internet’s fault that the music industry is struggling and that something needs to be done, he then suggests how good the pay TV model is but really if we don’t do some thing about the pipes they too will be doomed.

I wrote yesterday of what I thought was a troubling suggestion that “The struggling newspaper sector take a leaf out of the music industries play book and introduce an adoption of the long-established ASCAP-BMI performance rights model by which they could collect payment for some of their content when it is distributed outside the boundaries of their own publications and websites.”

 I thought this was trying to stretch copyrights reach and proposed a fictional scenario that could happen if this was adopted. I noted that I thought it unlikely that a performance rights model would ever be adopted by the media but I also was careful to acknowledge it was an idea and that although I personally did not like it I respected the right of the author to propose of it. I also have had ideas based on improving failed models and often write of them so I guess it is only fare to acknowledge others work as well.

I also once proposed in another article that we should monetize privacy and that I had written about how today we have the MPAA and RIAA wanting to shut down a very successful distribution platform in the form of piracy and peer to peer networks. I felt that the content industries should utilize non commercial piracy along with their commercial endeavours to legalize a phenomenon that they can’t ever hope to stop.  If other people are distributing your products for free, that is free of any costs and of course revenue why not licence people to use it, why not sell consumers a license that allowed them to source their personal use media from anywhere on the net? So I find it is an interesting juxtaposition to read at TorentFreak this morning that UK version of ASCAP The Performing Rights Society, have proposed collecting royalties by charging internet service providers an amount to cover the cost of illegal downloading happening on their networks.

This sounds like a very similar idea to mine of licensing piracy however I think economist Will Page in his paper “Moving Digital Britain Forward without Leaving Creative Britain Behind” might find some stiff opposition to this plan. I obviously think it has some merits, but I might not agree with his all proposed methodology and some of the supposed givens or acknowledged realities are rather one sided.  I thought this would be an interesting one to comment on since my attempt at a similar idea did not go in to specifics of implementation and this it a rather detailed economic report so I will note my thoughts on the model as proposed by Will Page. Well I don’t really do this kind of reporting often as I rely on other sites interpretation of the economic papers and I seldom read them but no this time armed with a handy print out I sat down with pen in hand and proceeded to read the article in depth these are my observations and they may be a little narky and I make no apologies for that as after all this is only my opinion.


I think the basic premise is that all the other distribution models were good because they had gate keepers that charged for use and that the internet is a godless abomination that needs to be harnessed for the good of the content industries. I don’t think he believes that people are necessarily evil, but the internet in nothing more than a means to thwart previously sound revenue models such as pay TV and that the music industry understands and knows the solution. This is really interesting when he talks about how the government was proposing a levy to fund the upgrading of the internet in Britain something governments around the world including Australia with its national broadband plan are doing and so this had crossed a line. That asking people to pay a levy so that they could access illegal content through faster pipes no this was a bridge too far, faster speeds meant more content, how dare they.  They the content industries had not even dared to speak such heinous words but now the government had well how about a levy on piracy.

The way I saw it’s like he was saying that the content industries had feed us all on a controlled diet of music, TV and films and we were now addicted like junkies, and like junkies we had resorted to theft to get our drug of dependence and that the internet was the syringe feeding us. The thing is nobody knows how much illegal content is being distributed and consumed but “fortunately, the rights holder industry is not alone in this area. One of Ofcom’s duties under the new Digital Economy Act is to provide “…an assessment of the current level of subscribers’ use of internet access services to infringe copyright.” Based on their most recent communications this assessment will involve existing data, consumer research, and new databased on network traffic characteristics”.



So then the article details that yes indeed it is time to try the carrot approach as it is clear that hitting people with a stick is not working and clearly does not endear your customers. But its at this point in  the article that I get rather confused when  he says they have dropped the stick but are now “nudging” users to do the right thing, but really it is the nasty ISP’s that are allowing this to happen so the carrot should be a charge levied against the ISP’s when you or I are naughty and download illegal content, and they will know this because Ofcom has told them how naughty we have been.

There is a bit of discussion of which type of carrot to use in this process either a levy or a licence, the licence is problematic as it seems to bestow too many rights so a levy is a better choice.  The other interesting thing that this article attempts to take a swipe at BP and their gulf coast issues with a parable about the evil petroleum company that leaked its oil all over the fisheries of some poor fishermen and how that they should be compensated, I failed to see the relevance but topical none the less. The bottom line that I got from this article is that this is not about licensing piracy at all really is about getting ISP’s to stop it at its doors before the user can access it at all. The model that the levy charged to ISP’s would fluctuate with the levels of piracy detected so if you reduce piracy on your pipes you reduce the levy. This is just shifting the compliance of copyright to ISP’s , this is not going to fly and already ISP’s in Britain have called this for what it is, just another way to lock up content and to try and harness the internet.

I really enjoyed the paper the concepts covered are sound and although I disagree with the findings the evidence presented could easily be pervasive in augments to licence piracy as I had envisioned it. What do you think?

the abbott family; fair use or will it be copyright abuse

UPDATE: The You Tube clip has now been pulled by the The Australian Workers Union and is no longer able to be viewed where originally posted  , no reason is given for the removal but it was a voluntary action and although that does not indicate in its self that copyright was used I bet that some pressure was applied either way. So my article below has been proved correct, I however have found another copy so its not dead and that is what I have been saying , delete means nothing on the internet watch it here why you still can and of course still read the article.

I was writing another story when I just caught the end of Today on Channel 9 in Melbourne Australia and they alerted me to this You Tube video using a spoof of the Adams family to lampoon The Federal Australian Liberal Party portraying them as the Abbott Family. I don’t think this is particularly creative or becoming of a political advertisement and already a spelling mistake has been identified and that the producers of the clip don’t under stand the difference between their there’re and their, but hey that’s happens on the internet all the time. It was created by The Australian Workers' Union.

Australia is in the grip of a federal election campaign and the airways and the internet is full of political comment and advertising and indeed it is an interesting election campaign after the recent dumping of Kevin Rudd for his heir apparent a few weeks back I wrote a commentary back then you can read here. But that is not I want to tackle here, avid readers would note that I write quite often of copyright and its abuse and here I think we have a classic case that propels politics and the real issues of copyright and fair use together.

Will this clip last the distance until 21^st August 2010, Election Day?  I wrote just as recently as Saturday about respect and that I believe this is what is lacking from copyright, and that fair use is paid lip service. It was the story of an Auschwitz survivor who had a video that celebrates this fact yanked from You Tube on copyright grounds as it used the Gloria Gaynor’s song I Will Survive, you can read my post and the details here.

The Adams Family n 1964, the ABC-TV network created a television series based on Addams's cartoon characters. The series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons in 64 half-hour episodes (September 18, 1964 – September 2, 1966). The TV series featured a memorable theme song, written and arranged by longtime Hollywood composer Vic Mizzy.



(The song was briefly revived in 2007 for a series of "Addams Family" TV commercials for M&M's candies.)



I would guess judging by the details above that copyright would exist in this clip that they have used, it appears to have been video edited and altered and so might be a derivative work. This could be considered parody but it also is a political ad. I don’t know but I suspect that this will disappear very quickly. Now because of my political beliefs I really don’t care if this survives or not, it's just it will be interesting what happens here and that I am divided on the outcome. If is political speech and if copyright is used to silence it, what harm have the copyright holders suffered? What lost sales, what good are they denied?  Does copyright become an even greater power bestowed on the holders than was originally intended, one that allows then to stifle non related debate?  This show is long gone and we all have a little bit inside our heads after all the reason this clip was chosen is that it has an image that was already created very successful all those years back, but that image also exists in our heads and that is what the ad is exploiting not the value of the work but the associations.

So time will tell whether the Abbot family can keep annoying audiences on You Tube it's up to you the voters of Australia to decide is Tony Abbott will annoy you as Prime Minter of Australia come Election day 21st August


2010. What do you think? Is the Abbott family clip fair use?  judge for yourself and leave a comment love to hear what you think.

home taping only maiming music now, time for another tax

I have to give it to the content industries they are stubborn and they never give up the fight, and that’s one of the only concessions that I will give them, after all I hear our gaols are full of innocent people as well but apparently their arguments are not as nearly as convincing to our politicians. The content industry in general but the music business in particular are always well prepared when it comes to arguing their case for protection from the ravages that technology may inflict upon their industries. I find it amusing that this can create somewhat paradoxical situation in which the models that they today wish to protect were in fact created by earlier technological advances that they had previously tried to hinder and that today’s actions could very well prevent the very thing that will help the music industry flourish into the future and beyond.

The content industries have always argued and quite successfully, again I must concede if the legislation that surrounds copyright is anything to go by, that each copy of a piece of intellectual property should have all the same rights associated with it that a physical tangible item does. This was important as technology allowed the average consumer to make analogue copies of others work at little or no cost to themselves that provided no financial reward (read incentive) to the creator and owner of the said copied worked. Unlike the physical tangible item the value of the intangible item was obviously not tangible and that although they sold the customer a physical item, it was actually just the packaging and the medium. In the analogue world the copy that could be created was an inferior one but this never stopped the content creators arguing for and receiving some protections in the form of levies on recordable mediums that could be used for non infringing use, you know the type, creating a mix tape for the car of your legally purchased music. However as pointed out by the content industries these mediums could also be used to distribute others intellectual property to parties that had not paid and in essence this was theft and a lost sale. So in many jurisdictions around the world consumers now had to pay an entertainment tax on their recordable mediums regardless of the intended use of that medium to cover the merely possible actions of consumers.

It was pretty clear back then that the music industry was not going to tolerate any loss of income from people stealing (listening) to their product, and thus the foundations were then set in stone. Very soon as new mediums entered the market the content industry attempted to extend this reach of the tax sometimes with more success than others. Just because it was possible to utilize the medium for infringing purposes did not always carry as much weight as they would have liked but over all they had created another income stream and extended the reach of copyright. It was interesting as we moved in to the digital age and the emergence of file sharing that the content industries started to back away from these levies and enter a period of denial of the real motive and reasons for this stance. But it soon became imminent and that there were worried by a possible unintended consequence as people started to equate the levy with tacit endorsement for downloading of music illegally. After all that is exactly what the levy was designed to catch and so rather than accept the reality they just kept pushing for further eroding of consumers rights, while arguing that of course that is not what the levy was for.

So and to today and the world has again moved on and the physical medium is being replaced with the cloud, coincidently probably the best content control medium that there is, but this has also resulted in other changes. The creation of cloud hinged on a development that allowed infrastructure to store the huge amount of data required to make this medium possible, the enormous increase in hard disk storage capacity and the consequential drop in price of said capacity did exactly this. But as a consequence it also allowed the consumer access to these larger hard drives just over 10 Years ago, a 10 gig hard drive seemed perfectly fine, but now it is not uncommon for home setups to have storage capacity in the multiple terabyte territory. Where as before the storage mediums allowed us to back up our data, now the disks offer such a minuscule percentage of the hard disk capacity it is no longer viable and more likely we would use another hard disk to back up our data, mind you these uses were never infringing. The other use was of course to transfer our music to other devices but as with hard drives in computers we have also seen this increase in capacity in mobile phones, mp3 players and portable external hard drives and it is these devices that for the majority of us we now get our music from. The car CD player is in decline and the cassette player well I don’t know if it’s dead but surely the last rights are immanent if not. But what of the mediums blank CD’s, DVD’s and cassette tapes? Well obviously these are in decline as well and this is having an impact on guess who? Yes the poor old content industries have been dealt another blow to their revenue streams.

This article at ZeroPaid Swedish Copyright Collective – Technology Is Killing the Blank Disc Star reports that copyright collective that collects royalties on blank discs is starting to feel diminishing returns due to the slump in blank disc sales and that the royalty collection agency is scrambling to find the next thing to tax to keep revenue money flowing. It so sounds like an industry innovating and challenging the status quo with new and innovative new products and review streams but no.

Income generated from a copy fee built in to the price of recordable CDs and DVDs – and shared among artists and copyright holders – has almost halved over the last two years. In 2007, sales of blank discs generated 200 million kronor ($28 million) for artists, compared to just 113 million kronor in 2009. “We’re seeing a technology shift whereby the discs in themselves are no longer of interest. File sharers and others have started using different technologies. Things can instead be stored on people’s computer hard drives or their telephones,” Copyswede’s managing director Mattias Åkerlind told news agency TT.



There are also calls by copyright collectives to try to persuade law makers for the need to put a new levy on newer technology such as cell phones; however negotiations have stalled of late, with no support from electronics retailers who oppose price increase on consumer goods such as telephones and hard disks. In an earlier article I wrote of a push to levy ISP’s and how some organizations (SAC, EFF, etc.) having recommended putting a levy on ISPs and allowing file-sharing to continue unabated. It would appear that rights holders are refusing to budge on this one though and it would appear that I am not alone in my thinking on this one. I think ZeroPaid got it spot on with this though “Maybe the elephant in the room is being ignored because rights holders want to have their cake and eat it too (tax consumers and sue them too)”.

What do you think? Do you like I feel that the crocodile tears are not nearly moving enough? Leave me a comment love to hear your thoughts.

if censoring debate is the actual policy make sure yours is an informed vote

Do you trust the current Australian Government to protect and guard you and your rights as an Australian citizen? This is of course one of the many questions all duly enrolled Australian citizens will ask themself come August the 21^st as we again participate as voters in a the federal election. Our politicians are our elected representatives and are empowered to act on the counties and her people’s behalf and in casting a vote for one candidate over another should be indicative of the implicit trust that they will do just that, but do they? I think the current government is failing its people in the critically important area of information technology, yes we have the National Broadband Plan and although I question the need for this type of government intervention the prognosis from the tech sectors and the journalists who specialize in this area is that it is a good thing so I will take that as a given. No I am worried by two areas of policy in particular and the unintended consequences that these may have on all Australians if implemented.

Censorship and privacy are two areas that are of great concern to me, these things can easily be abused and thus governments should always tread lightly when introducing legislation and policy as it is not always their original intention that is the actual outcome. Following the recent debacle that was the debate over the censoring of the Australian Internet or the Australian arm of it so to speak and the postponement of this policy until after the next federal election came news that the Australian government was consulting with the internet industry over another proposal, to require ISPs to spy on its users and record all of their activity while on the internet. Maybe I am being little too harsh so how about this explanation that they are contemplating the idea of having ISP’s store and record certain internet activities of all Australians that may be acquired while they use the internet, this will be done to aid law-enforcement agencies if the need arises to access certain data of an Australian suspected of a crime. I would really like to be more specific but details of this proposal are kind of sketchy you see all the participants in the consolation have been sworn to secrecy. I really don’t like when governments keep secrets call me naïve but I thought that politicians should be accountable to us the people the people who voted them in to government in the first instance and that keeping us in the dark although obviously a useful defence against criticism was counter intuitive to the whole elected representative type scenario we call democracy.

All is not lost however we do have freedom of information laws that allow us to partition the relevant government body to publically release documents that it is believed that are in the public interest for us to see. This is usually done by the news organizations and the press and reported in the mainstream media, the government bodies do however have some recourse to remove sensitive information that they believe is not in the public interest. Which brings me to this little gem as reported in the Melbourne Age full details here

The federal government has censored approximately 90 per cent of a secret document outlining its controversial plans to snoop on Australians' web surfing, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, out of fear the document could cause "premature unnecessary debate".

This is the most outrageous form of political censorship of debate that I have ever witnessed, this is more akin to our Chinese neighbours however even they would not insult our intelligence and release it at all. Again it may be my naivety coming to the fore but I thought that government was meant to encourage debate not aim to suppress it however I hope this abuse of FOI does exactly the opposite.I find it I would say amusing, however scary is probably more appropriate that Communications minster Senator Conroy the elected representative that is the minister responsible of Information Technology once is a rebut of Google for their data collection issues that he lashed out at and accused the internet giant of the single biggest breach of privacy in history and yet another government department is not only not accidently proposing to do but intending to do this but to do so deliberately and without even letting the people they are supposed to protect participate in the debate. This tactic is not unique at all and a similar strategy is being pursued with the ACTA negotiation, arstechnica has further details on that here so I really should not be surprised.

I have to take it on good faith that this government if re-elected will not abuse its powers and introduce draconian laws that will not only censor the internet but if the way debate is encouraged by them is any indication without any openness or consultation with the people it will impact. The other scary thing is I don’t know if the other side of the political landscape is proposing to do the same as they are not really talking. My dilemma no doubt but if you’re an Australian resident yours as well, I not going to tell any one how to vote come August the 21^st however I would ask that you at least ponder the impact that full data retention and censorship of the internet might have on you and if the unintended consequences as worth it.

What do you think? Are you worried about censorship and privacy? Leave me a comment as usual love to hear your opinions after all fair is fair you have just read mine.

If you don’t like toffee adding an apple won’t make it taste better (a toffy apple approach to news)

We live in a society where entitlement is seen as a right and no longer needs to be earned. The preoccupation with one's self and the constant need for satisfaction of our every need appears to be an all persuasive trend and like the flu in winter time is also very catching. The state of play in society however does provide for a two-way street, for companies and industries that embrace this need of their customer’s. The path to success for these organizations will be paved in gold, however for industries that have not yet recognised this and that are in fact having their own delusional thoughts of entitlement, their paths detours somewhat and lets just hope that no one has turned the light off in that tunnel just yet.

I think that the newspaper industry is a classic example of an industry that is failing to adapt to the new digital landscape and that the unprecedented success in their past has created a sense of entitlement, but in this new landscape they have neither adapted nor are they ready to compromise. This attitude does not bode well for them, because other leaner, fresh thinking organizations such as Apple Corp don’t have the baggage of the past and so only have their eyes firmly planted on the future. Hiding in your shell and demanding that all others do the same, or adopting an ostrich like position with thy head placed firmly in the sand does not a sound business model make, yet any astute observer of the newspaper industries both here in Australia and abroad may have noticed this very stance.

The early and most successful news aggregation and distribution models favoured big media. There were considerable barriers, being the high costs of entry, technological restraints as well as government regulation that all but conspired to keep news gathering and distribution in the hands on the minority. The news was owned by big media, they traded in this commodity, they controlled access and content, they were the licensed purveyors of news and if we wanted access we played by their rules. The internet changed this and big media have failed to adapt as yet.

I believe the problem is that we have two news models here and that although the newspapers maybe dabbling in both, they neither understand the internet nor realise that they require different strategies for each. When the internet first arrived newspapers were in the strongest position to avail themselves of the advantages that this platform held. They were the gate keepers of news and on the internet “content is king” and so they appeared to hold all the cards. They initially just took the newspapers and posted the stories online with html reproduction of their print editions. It did not take long for new and aggressive players to enter the market and offer up new and innovative competition, the rules were different online and a static page became boring very quickly. The newspapers have struggled and like the music industries before them have decided that competition needs to be tainted some what so as to swing the pendulum back their way. The way the old incumbents see it, is that without them there would be no news, so either protect them or suffer the consequences.

Currently there are a few high profile methods being adopted by the newspaper industries in their hope to compete with the new media, each method is interesting in its own right. There is the paywall and walled garden approach of charging subscribers for your content. This approach may very well provide the answer for some type of speciality comment and opinion sites. For most newspapers I however don’t think this is the answer or will provide the solution they think it will.  Because for the majority of sites, news is perceived as such a generic commodity that users can and will easily source it elsewhere at no cost if they are not willing to pay or they perceive no added value. Time will tell if this strategy will work as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation intends to implement this across all his media empire and so the experiment begins.

Another tactic being employed by the incumbent media organisations is to try to revive an old tactic of locking down the news with the Hot News doctrine. Hot news is a long recognised but seldom used common law doctrine that assigns a temporary property right to the reporting of a hot news item, similar to copyright but obviously with a much shorter expiration period. Copyright has in the past as is now, has been used to protect the economic interests of the creator’s of semi intangible ideas and concepts allowing them to assert ownership over said concepts for a pre determined period of time. Thus allowing them to profit from their work and stimulate the further creation of ideas and works by others in providing an artificial mechanism of protection from theft. The doctrine has not been widely abused or used as yet and I am of course hoping that it will this not happen, but coincidently some news headlines lately have floated the idea of hot news being a good idea worth exploring.

Finally the last method that is being tried and adopted is that of offering content through applications designed for specific devices such as iPhones and iPads and the use of others walled gardens to extract a payment for their content. This approach is interesting and could well provide the answer for some, although I still subscribe to the argument that free alternatives would still attract people not willing to pay. However this method and platform adoption does offer many customers easily accessible content that adds value to their experience and they are willing to pay for. The iTunes store has been a very successful platform for Apple and content creators alike so it really is no surprise that newspapers might approach it like it will provide the saviour to their industry. The interesting thing is that nothing has ever stopped the media companies from developing and applying this approach them selves before Apple arrived on the scene with their solution. And I suppose that’s the real rub, of my argument against this industry I believe it is all about innovation and I keep failing to see it from this industry.

However I think that as I said earlier in this piece both the internet and the old tangible product are two different markets and should be approached differently but it would appear if the pricing strategy for SMH is anything to go by, their iPad app and subscription service is designed to do nothing but prop up the old print edition by boosting subscriber numbers and I assume the price they can sell print adverting for. mUmBRELLA has an excellent opinion piece that you can read here Bad enough the SMH iPad app is just a PDF, forcing a print subscription is insane that details the whole deal as well as pointing out that the actual app is not much chop anyway. So here we do again have to wait for the outcomes to this experiment.

Now that the barriers to entry are no more that a PC and an internet connection these huge media conglomerates are hemorrhaging money, and blame their woes like so many other industries that have found the landscape has shifted and that they now must compete not only with internet but with those who understand how to use and exploit it better than they do. The only analogy that I can think of is if only the horse-drawn buggy industry had fought a little harder we may not have the scourge that is the modern motor vehicle and that carbon emissions would be so much lower than they are today. Or is that just folly as it is with the newspaper industry? I believe these industries need to realise that they need to adapt and adjust to the new medium pretending you still hold the reins on control is just embarrassing as so is their inactions to date. The internet has made many people rich, not because they stole from legacy industries but because they adapted to the changing landscape and most importantly worked out who their customers were and who was going to pay, and most importantly these are not necessarily always the same.

What do you think? Do you have an iPad? Are you going to subscribe to any newspapers apps? Leave me a comment.

This article was based on and used previous material that I had previously posted on the internet.