Cory says that the mainstream publishers: book publishers, movie studios, record labels, and their allies/dupes like the Authors Guilds are acting against their own interests by resisting their own interests by making deals with Apple, Google, and Amazon. Instead, they should be making reasonable distribution deals with anyone who asks. An individual ought to be able to create his/her own internet radio station even if it had an audience of one.
Corey didn't explicitly say it this way, but the publishers should stop looking at net distributors as pirates. Instead deal with them as local retail dealers, like your neighborhood book store or movie theater. The current setup makes monopolists out Google and Apple. These gatekeepers will ultimately have more power than the publishers to the detriment of artists, publishers, and consumers alike.
Thanks for the summary. He made some really excellent points, but unfortunately he doesn't differentiate between his facts, guesses, speculations, and opinions. It's all written in the same tone - which had me stopping and doublechecking a bunch of points, with, "Is this a fact, or is he extrapolating, or is this his opinion...?"
Bit of a confusing read, but there's some real gems in there. This was the most interesting part for me, about Google happily letting the Author's Guild get class-action status:
Maybe I am being particularly thick right now but I am not entirely sure I follow what he is objecting to. Google (and Amazon) allow me to find authors I am interested in and buy their latest book - their self-published book because their publisher dropped them due to poor sales. How is Googlezon equivalent to publishers in this context?
Just because Googlezon have dominance (let's not have the M-argument again) in their market does not mean their cultural effect is the same as if there was only one book publisher. Google and Amazon aren't a publisher in this context, they are a discovery service.
He's not against what Googlzon allows its users to do, but rather, the deal that content creators struck with Googlzon which leads to laws with conditions that favors Googlzon as a big company, not Googlzon as a startup that they once were.
One such condition are royalties or payment that a big company can readily afford, but not a startup.
This affects that industry market for all subsequent startups which want to enter that market.
So instead of just doing something and asking for permission later (as all startups and upstarts do), you need to spend time and energy into lawyers and such. It's hard to imagine Google succeeding if, in addition to all the technical hurdles, they had to amass and direct a team of lawyers also.
So the question we have to ask ourselves are what startups--and subsequently--what innovations are being stifled, if not avoided altogether due to copyright laws getting in the way?
I hope it goes without saying that innovation is what keeps a country ahead of others economically and militarily (probably among others I'm not thinking of), and that's why it's important in the long run.
So the question we have to ask ourselves are what startups--and subsequently--what innovations are being stifled, if not avoided altogether due to copyright laws getting in the way?
Well that is exactly what I don't get. I mean, there seems to be an assumption that market dominance in cultural distribution is obviously bad, no explanation required. But it is not clear to me what the precise danger is here, because it is not clear to me what the necessity is for content creators to stick with Googlezon if Googlezon as a content publisher becomes deleterious to their well-being.
He mentions that there are only 6 (major) movie studios. Let's pretend that they have a merge-a-thon and get down to one major movie studio. Would it matter to anyone? Probably not, because the 6 current large studios more or less all churn out the same mainstream fair. Would a small independent studio be worse off if there was one instead of six major studios? Probably not, because the small independent ("startup" in your parlance) exists to cater to a certain niche that welcomes its products almost by definition because they are not a major studio cookie-cutter production.
Don't get me wrong - I can seriously wind myself up thinking about the consolidation of the news media, or of chip manufacturing companies, but in this particular case I still don't understand what I am really supposed to be afraid of. And he asks for pretty major action as a result of a danger that is not particularly clear.
Content providers. In the brick-and-mortar analogy, retailers would provide the discovery service. Not to say that publishers can't do both, of course.
Not a legal expert by any stretch but couldn't a later group of authors challenge who the outcome of the case applied to? If there in no way affiliated with the Authors Guild?
I've just been watching a Boston Legal episode (from series 4, ep 7), and fictionally, they sue YouTube. Not 'MegaView' or 'SuperVid', but YOUTUBE. I wondered how they can get away with using a real company in a fictional lawsuit?
Corey didn't explicitly say it this way, but the publishers should stop looking at net distributors as pirates. Instead deal with them as local retail dealers, like your neighborhood book store or movie theater. The current setup makes monopolists out Google and Apple. These gatekeepers will ultimately have more power than the publishers to the detriment of artists, publishers, and consumers alike.