The entertainment industry--music, television and movies--is living in the past. Content is distributed through physical media and balkanized distribution deals. Movie and TV studios cannot envision a world without traditional cable distribution.
Pretty much everyone who reads HN knows this.
The gaming industry has largely ditched these old world models. Titles are generally available worldwide within days of initial release. Games are AFAIK not region-protected (they could be on at least console platforms). Digital distribution, at least for PC games, is widespread (ie Steam). What's more that distribution is awesome. Delete a title? Want to re-download it? Not a problem! Not so with iTunes.
Take Game of Thrones, a series produced by HBO with immense worldwide interest. I imagine piracy of this is enormous. Unfortunately, HBO, which seems stuck in the premium cable model, will look at this of evidence that we need more regulation and prosecutions.
What it actually means is there is unsatisfied demand. If people could buy it on iTunes or buy an HBO subscription on their PC on iPad without having to have a cable subscription (which HBO Go requires) then there would be a lot less piracy IMHO. Of course international distribution would also interfere with HBO's traditional distribution deals.
Basically, HBO is just leaving money on the table when I'm sure people would pay $3-5 per episode of GoT as long as they could watch it when they wanted and re-download or re-stream it as desired.
Most, if not all, US networks distribute their content via the Web, either directly or via Hulu (or both). Some place further restrictions like a window in which you can watch the content or a one week delay (as Fox does).
I like this model. I have no TV. I don't want a TV. I don't want a cable subscription (other than for internet).
The problem is that the experience is so awful the choice becomes either pirating it or not watching it. The ads break, they will switch you out of full screen mode, if you have to go back to the content (because it breaks, which it does) you will have to endure a half dozen ads to find the spot you were at and the inventory is repetitive and pointless (1 in 3 online ads are for Geico I swear, and I live in NYC and have no car so why am I being tortured with them?).
Part of the problem there is that advertisers are also stuck in traditional media. I wonder why this is. My best theory is that there are no accurate metrics on audience or conversion with, say, TV advertising so advertisers are basically buying into the lie that networks sell them.
Another theory is that traditional media reach audiences that online media don't.
But why can't I pay for a Hulu with no ads? I would. I have two theories about this too:
1. Hulu likes having a relationship with advertisers; and
2. The people most likely to pay not to see ads are the ones of most value to the advertisers.
So instead Hulu tries pointless differentiators to get me to buy Hulu Plus, like being able to watch it on my iPad. That would actually be nice but if I have to watch it on my laptop instead so be it.
The one company that seems to get online distribution is, of course, Netflix. Watch as much as you want, whenever you want, on whatever device you want for a flat fee. They've obviously solved the problem of distributing royalties and so forth to content owners. Why can't anyone else?
That'll probably change today with iCloud. Ironically, the record companies don't like how powerful Apple is but they've created the monster that is iTunes by first insisting on DRM and then shutting out other players. They wanted Amazon and Google to pay for playing music you own when it comes from a hard drive in the cloud rather than one you own. Neither did.
The result seems to be that they've turned to Apple as their saviour, which will probably make Apple even more powerful.
The whole situation--music, movies and TV--is utterly stupid.
That is because, right at its heart, the _universe_ does not respect owning information. Therefore it makes no sense that some subcomponent of the universe, say a person, or other entity could either. Sure, you can own a book on which information is printed, or multiple "copies"; that is, multiple physical books. But to the universe they are not copies, they are discrete physical entities. But when you are only splitting energy streams, that is making electronic copies; those are true copies. And this is where the lie that is "copyright" steps in. Literally, "the right to copy". As in, some entities, typically people, have it, and some do not. The fact that a new term had to be made up to give this fictitious idea a reality illuminates how baseless it is in the actual universe outside human society. Since the entire thing is predicated on a lie - the lie that the act of copying electronically can truly be controlled - it is intrinsic that it cannot last, since it has no basis in reality outside our minds. The would-be copyright owners sort of admit this when they try and use scare tactics to keep people from infringing on their so-called copyright. They do this with big FBI warnings (which the FBI had no hand whatsoever in creating), and those stupid "you wouldn't steal a car, would you?" ads. It sounds almost like someone is trying to convince _themselves_ of the veracity of owning information and the right to copy it. I, for one, think that the sooner the human race gets the hell over the idea that information can be owned, the better. There are other, better ways to make money through entertainment, and the entertainment industry is sooner or later going to have no choice but to face the music. It has been happening for decades, and the ubiquity of computers is making it worse for them, and better for everyone else, at last.
The universe also doesn't respect owning property. Saying that an arbitrary collection of atoms (a chair) belongs to another arbitrary collection of atoms (a human) is delusion pure and simple. It's just a delusion that a lot of arbitrary collections of atoms (humans) share.
Which, of course, is the whole point: property is an illusion with utility. For physical things like chairs, the concept 'makes sense.' What OP meant by invoking the universe was really to say that _people_ don't respect intellectual property.
And if you look closely, people don't respect physical property to an exact degree. We share, we borrow, we lend, we lease, we sometimes treat human work as property, we're generally just lazy with our accounting of ownership. Which, you know, is kinda cool.
Anyway, you use the word arbitrary as if the arbitrary nature of the line makes the line meaningless.
The way in which owning a physical thing "makes sense" is that you can defend a physical thing. You can move it to a location that's easier to defend, or build defenses around it, or whatever. Physical property is about defensibility; it's not a metaphor, but a capability. Information-as-property is a metaphor, precisely because defending the part you "own" of (what is otherwise) someone else's computer is so difficult as to be effectively impossible.
I think what Produce means to say is that many of our institutions and cultural facets are made up. There is very little natural backing for many of the laws and customs of human society (human rights? ha.) Invoking natural law to make a point about the utility of an abstraction makes no sense in context of all of the other abstractions that we use frequently in our lives (eg, property).
Actually, I was making the opposite side of the same point. Personally, I consider the existing abstractions to be as irrational as these new ones. It seems, to me, that people are hugely over-complicating life while arguing that survival is not possible any other way (or that the current way is the best we've got). The simple fact is that we fall prey to fear very often and construct these elaborate schemes to make us feel more secure. It would be more efficient to, as a species, at least make an attempt to face our fears. The issue is that we're biologically wired to survive in an environment of scarcity. We go kind of crazy (in the sense that our ideas do not match reality) when things are abundant.
But again, that's precisely the whole point. The natural law is whatever we decide it to be. Whereas you say 'made up' with its connotations of fantasy, the 'unreal' nature of our abstractions does not distract from the fact that they're very real in practice.
In other words, there is nothing to invoke but natural law; and there is nothing behind natural law. Invoking natural law is _itself_ the means by which natural law gains utility.
What laws do you think are real? The only 'real' law is the Sparrow Predicate: what a man can't do, and what a man can do. _Everything else is built upon this._
That is to say, it is distracting and adding nothing sensible to point out that physical property, too, is an abstraction--it is merely an extension of the original point, which is: people don't buy into the intellectual property concept nearly as much as the physical property concept.
I agree. That's exactly why they can't and will never be able to stop piracy on the Internet. Copying and sharing information on the Internet is designed into the Internet, and it's a fundamental principle of the Internet. Trying to stop it through outside "artificial" laws will not work. They manage to stop one thing and 10 better alternatives appear.
Your analysis is dead on. I forget the movie but I remember seeing that it was 'out on DVD.' I decided I wanted to watch said movie so I checked NF (streaming or disc) and it didn't have it. I checked Comcast OnDemand, not there either. So I checked xbox live and even itunes and it was not available. At this point the only way to watch the movie as to either buy it (rofl never) or pirate it.
In the end I just skipped the movie because it really wasn't that important, but look at the effort I went through to try and hand over my money. Number one rule of business is to make it frictionless for your customers to give you money. Movie studios do the exact opposite and then wonder why movies are pirated.
Why is buying a movie "rofl never" ? That still sounds pretty low on the friction scale. The playback hardware is thoroughly cheap and commoditized, and there's no DRM. If you just don't like the price for buying or don't want to store the media, you can resell it after watching.
I rarely see a movie more than once. If it's on iTunes or Amazon Video I can rent it for $3-4 (just like a video store, would you imagine that) and see it.
Buying it has two problems:
- I don't want to spend $15-20 on something I'll see only once.
- I want to see it now. A lot of my movie viewing is spontaneous (e.g., "I'm tired and don't want to do anything tonight... what good movies haven't I seen?"), and I'm not a hardcore enough movie buff to maintain a physical backlog of movies I need to see.
- Reselling is a pain. How? Craigslist? For one thing, I'm not sure what the demand is for random obscure DVDs on it, and secondly, that's more time I burn meeting up with a buyer just to get $5 on a DVD.
I will buy physical copies of things that I truly love and intend to see over and over again (e.g., the Band of Brothers box set, or the Firefly box set...)
More expensive ($10-$20), and I'm already paying for other services to rent movies from. I also haven't bought a movie in years. The large majority of stuff simply isn't good enough to own, and even if it's good I rarely sit down to watch a movie again (if it's on TV, and I have time, and it was good I may watch it again).
I also don't want to deal with physical media at all. And selling it afterwards? So now to watch a movie that is supposedly out at retail I need to buy it (go to the store or wait for it to be delivered), watch it, and then resell it? Add to the fact that many DVDs still have unskippable previews and the entire process is very high on my personal friction scale. All this and I'm in the US. It's even worse if someone is in another country. And people wonder why so many people pirate movies...
I don't know about the OP but I almost never buy movies aimed at adults because I very seldom want to see a movie more than once -- and certainly not more than once every several years. Just storing the movies becomes a burden. (We do buy kid's movies, because kids will happily watch the same movie many times, so it makes sense.)
You're incorrect in your statement that there is no DRM. All DVDs and Bluray discs contain DRM. You are not able to make copies even to format shift them in the United States without breaking several laws.
The illegal technology is so ubiquitous you don't even notice it. As far as I know the DVD player in VLC is illegal.
Does anyone remember when the blueray key was released? Without that I just don't think opensource playback would be possible, and it remains illegal to distribute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSShttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime
The cost of owning physical media is always underestimated (speaking as a person who ended up with a few thousand records, tapes, CDs, DVDs, etc): storage, maintenance and moving them if you should relocate to name a few. Re: selling them when you are done - it's not always so easy and if your purchase strategy includes "sell it when i am done with it" by default, you will end up losing quite a bit of money and time if you are more than a moderate consumer.
In re your Game of Thrones example: HBO is actually sitting pretty as compared to the big networks like NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX. After all, HBO doesn't really care how its subscribers consume its content: be it on the HBO Go iPad app, cable on-demand, DVR, TV, iTunes, or even (to some extent) by way of piracy (1). After all, it's monetizing the subscribers one way or the other. Networks can't count on the same, and if they try to transition to a premium cable model, they'll face stiff consumer resistance from a user base accustomed to getting its network content free of charge.
(1) The reason HBO doesn't need to care about piracy as much as networks do is somewhat counterintuitive. You'd think that, since HBO monetizes viewers directly, it should be deeply concerned with losing viewers to piracy. But actually, there's a reasonable argument to be made that HBO gains more users from piracy than it loses. Piracy serves as a great marketing vehicle for HBO's content, while not really stealing away a significant number of current users. Net-net, HBO might actually be better off for the existence of piracy. But that's just a hypothesis.
(2) Eventually, HBO will need to adapt its subscription model, which is predicated on semi-indirectly monetizing users by way of monetizing cable providers based on size of user base (among other factors). What does the adaptation look like? I'd imagine it's a future in which all cloud-based curators of content (Apple, Netflix, etc.) are monetized by HBO and other providers in a similar fashion to how HBO currently monetizes cable networks. In this sense, I don't think a la carte is totally going to replace subscription models for HBO and its ilk. It might be a nice complement to, but certainly not an immediate replacement for, business as usual.
Print, too. Yesterday I was standing in B&N looking at a book. It was $15. I fired up the Amazon app on my OD Droid and found the kindle version for $9.99 and a paperback for $6. I ordered the paperback for $6, and because I have Prime, will not pay shipping and get it in 2 days.
Sheet music is the worst. I was told, using an online sheet music service, that I was allowed to print the sheet music I had purchased once only and using software I had to install which was developed especially to force this. If the print job failed I would have to repurchase the sheet music. I could not buy a digital copy and print it as often as I liked. When I questioned this policy I was told it was out of their hands, that it was the only model of online distribution that the sheet music cartel or whoever it was would agree to.
I think this was it. They also allowed you to change the key of the piece before you printed so this is where a digital score is shown to be far superior to a piece of paper but if you want it in every key then they want you to pay them twelve times. No thanks.
(If you're running Windows) Microsoft's XPS Document Writer is pretty good for this. It results in a .xps file but you can do whatever you want with that afterwards, including PDF conversion.
Unfortunately, many pieces are longer so they fit on more than one page. Of course, one motivated enough could still print screen each page. Even easier on a Mac where you can select a rectangle to print screen from with Cmd+Shift+4.
Some software has been developed to prevent print screening. I've also seen the web variant of this, to prevent you from doing right click - Open image in new tab. Used on some of those funny images sharing sites.
"The one company that seems to get online distribution is, of course, Netflix. Watch as much as you want, whenever you want, on whatever device you want for a flat fee. They've obviously solved the problem of distributing royalties and so forth to content owners."
They haven't quite solved it, as they get only a limited selection. Every week its coverage of the "B-list" is improved but they've had only limited penetration into the A-class stuff. Still, I would pay easily twice what I do now to get a better selection of updated stuff from them, on the condition that they continue to have no ads, which is rapidly becoming my line in the sand.
Netflix's limited selection is of course a function of the rights holders' limited conception of digital distribution. Netflix would stream every movie they could, I'm sure, but the copyright holder is not OK with that.
The article from David Byrne a few days ago made the point that the music industry is a very recent invention in the history of music as a part of human culture, and that things have changed drastically over the last 100 years. The recording industry of the 20th century will be nothing but a (influential) blip on the radar in the history of music.
The music industryΒ seems to think that they have some fundamental right to exist. I can't blame them for not wanting to admit that things are changing again and they are on the way out.
Spotify, like netflix, seem to 'get it'. They offer a 'listen to as much as you want' plan for a flat monthly fee.
I'm sure their biggest achievement to date is convincing the music labels that this is a good idea.
I can't see any other business model that can compete with this, and I fully expect it to become the dominant entertainment distribution model in the next 2-3 years.
I expect this is why Apple are launching icloud, even though it's going to cannibalise their existing itunes business.
Question is, I wonder if the same subscription model will eventually permeate to the app store?
re: Gaming. Did you notice that the article was an Australian one?
Duke Nukem Forever -- is on-sale for me in the Steam Store for $71.99USD. (Remember that the $AUD is higher than the USD at the moment). In the US -- $44.99
For example, I mistakenly preordered Civ5 last year. It was like US$80 on Steam. A$50 locally (I still lived in Australia then) and I could buy it for like A$35-40 delivered from the UK.
What's weird is the physical media just installed the Steam game. So I don't get why it was so expensive on Steam.
It does seem Steam's content distribution is somewhat complicated. Like Telstra has their own Steam server so will distribute Steam content to BigPond customers and possibly broader than that. So they'll no doubt get a cut for that. Steam will take a cut. But for physical media the retailer takes a huge cut. So why so expensive digitally?
Australia requires a different version of many games because it has more stringent age ratings. This means that a separate distribution agreement is required for Oz (and thus for new Zealand because the Yanks can't tell us apart). This translated into higher prices because, well just because.
The short answer is a vpn into the US (or nearly anywhere). Prices become magically cheaper and hulu starts working.
>My best theory is that there are no accurate metrics on
>audience or conversion with, say, TV advertising so
>advertisers are basically buying into the lie that networks
>sell them.
There also are no accurate metrics on audience or conversion with TV advertising. It is just that everyone in the industry has grown accustomed to using the Neilsen numbers, no matter how inaccurate, as "the one and only", and they don't yet have any comfort with the equivalent on a net based distribution system.
Consider the typical Neilsen ratings number. It estimates (because it is a sample set) that X number televisions were tuned to broadcast Y at time Z. And from that advertisers estimate that Q number of viewers watched the ads.
But in reality, all the Neilsen numbers report is that a certain number of Neilsen monitored TV's are tuned to broadcast Y at time Z. During the ads, they do not know what happened. The viewer might have hit the can (a common occurrence), or gone to get some munchies from the kitchen (another common occurrence) or checked HN while the ads were running. But because all the "users" of the numbers have grown accustomed to estimating from an estimate they believe they have something useful. In reality, the emperor has no clothes. But they ignore reality.
I think the worse problem would be similar to that political pollsters (who are supposed to only call landlines) are having in the age of cell phones. What was once a method for getting a relatively representative sample of the population is an increasingly biased one. Correcting for the differences can be done, but as time goes on, the uncertainty of the corrections grows. Truth and perception diverge.
The worst thing about Hulu Plus is that you pay for the ability to stream shows on things like Roku BUT only some of their catalog is cleared for streaming to a TV (I guess because their licensing doesn't clear it for an actual TV screen vs PC screen). I don't have a cable subscription and it's kind of just aggravating to me that the TV studios do this.
As someone who works at one of these online video streaming sites - the content providers' do make it pretty hard to do things right. Even companies that 'get it' have their hands tied by the people the content is licensed from.
Pretty much everyone who reads HN knows this.
The gaming industry has largely ditched these old world models. Titles are generally available worldwide within days of initial release. Games are AFAIK not region-protected (they could be on at least console platforms). Digital distribution, at least for PC games, is widespread (ie Steam). What's more that distribution is awesome. Delete a title? Want to re-download it? Not a problem! Not so with iTunes.
Take Game of Thrones, a series produced by HBO with immense worldwide interest. I imagine piracy of this is enormous. Unfortunately, HBO, which seems stuck in the premium cable model, will look at this of evidence that we need more regulation and prosecutions.
What it actually means is there is unsatisfied demand. If people could buy it on iTunes or buy an HBO subscription on their PC on iPad without having to have a cable subscription (which HBO Go requires) then there would be a lot less piracy IMHO. Of course international distribution would also interfere with HBO's traditional distribution deals.
Basically, HBO is just leaving money on the table when I'm sure people would pay $3-5 per episode of GoT as long as they could watch it when they wanted and re-download or re-stream it as desired.
Most, if not all, US networks distribute their content via the Web, either directly or via Hulu (or both). Some place further restrictions like a window in which you can watch the content or a one week delay (as Fox does).
I like this model. I have no TV. I don't want a TV. I don't want a cable subscription (other than for internet).
The problem is that the experience is so awful the choice becomes either pirating it or not watching it. The ads break, they will switch you out of full screen mode, if you have to go back to the content (because it breaks, which it does) you will have to endure a half dozen ads to find the spot you were at and the inventory is repetitive and pointless (1 in 3 online ads are for Geico I swear, and I live in NYC and have no car so why am I being tortured with them?).
Part of the problem there is that advertisers are also stuck in traditional media. I wonder why this is. My best theory is that there are no accurate metrics on audience or conversion with, say, TV advertising so advertisers are basically buying into the lie that networks sell them.
Another theory is that traditional media reach audiences that online media don't.
But why can't I pay for a Hulu with no ads? I would. I have two theories about this too:
1. Hulu likes having a relationship with advertisers; and
2. The people most likely to pay not to see ads are the ones of most value to the advertisers.
So instead Hulu tries pointless differentiators to get me to buy Hulu Plus, like being able to watch it on my iPad. That would actually be nice but if I have to watch it on my laptop instead so be it.
The one company that seems to get online distribution is, of course, Netflix. Watch as much as you want, whenever you want, on whatever device you want for a flat fee. They've obviously solved the problem of distributing royalties and so forth to content owners. Why can't anyone else?
That'll probably change today with iCloud. Ironically, the record companies don't like how powerful Apple is but they've created the monster that is iTunes by first insisting on DRM and then shutting out other players. They wanted Amazon and Google to pay for playing music you own when it comes from a hard drive in the cloud rather than one you own. Neither did.
The result seems to be that they've turned to Apple as their saviour, which will probably make Apple even more powerful.
The whole situation--music, movies and TV--is utterly stupid.