Killing The Golden Goose (Again); How The Copyright Stranglehold Dooms Spotify
from the because-of-course dept
For many, many, many years, we’ve talked about how the legacy entertainment industry will seek to kill the Golden Goose by strangling basically any innovation that is helping it adapt to new innovations. We saw the same pattern over and over and over again. The simple version of it goes like this: the legacy entertainment industry sits around and whines about how awful the internet is because it’s undermining its gatekeeper business model that extracts massive monopoly rents, but does nothing to actually adapt. Eventually, companies come along and innovate and create a service (a) people want that (b) actually is legal and pays the legacy companies lots of money. This should be seen as a win-win for everyone.
But the legacy companies get jealous of the success of the innovator who did the actual work. They start to overvalue the content and undervalue the innovative service. The short version of this tends to pop up when a legacy entertainment exec says something like “why is innovative company x making so much money when all it’s doing is making use of our content?” Of course, if the service part was so obvious, so easy, and so devoid of value, then the legacy entertainment companies would have done it themselves. But they didn’t. So with the jealousy comes the inevitable demand for more cash from the innovator. And, usually, demands for equity too, which the innovator has basically no ability to resist, because they need to have a “good” relationship with the content companies. But the demands for more (and the jealousy) never go away.
The end result, of course, is that tons of innovative businesses that created amazing services that people liked get crushed. Completely. Venture capitalist David Pakman (who founded one of the companies, which I used way back in the day, that was eventually crushed, called MyPlay) detailed how the legacy recording industry used this strategy to bury more than 150 companies over the past two decades. It’s the same story over and over again. Any company becomes too successful and the legacy copyright holders squeeze them to death, whining the whole time about how they don’t pay enough. As Pakman wrote:
The music industry complains loudly about the ?leverage? these giants have over them. First they criticized Apple iTunes for not agreeing to raise prices above $0.99, then they went after Pandora and other webcasters by insisting webcasting rates were too low, then they attacked Spotify for not paying them enough, then they insisted Apple Music pay them more than Spotify did, and now, just as the YouTube licensing agreements are coming up for renewal, they complain YouTube doesn?t pay them as much as Spotify.
But this is a ?crisis? of their own making. Many of us argued for years that it was in the industry?s best interest to create a healthy ecosystem of hundreds or thousands of successful companies, all enjoying successful businesses around music. But those arguments fell on deaf ears, and instead the industry fought repeatedly to raise royalty rates over and over again, despite evidence that not a single company ever achieved profitability.
In my mind, it would have been in the best long-term interests of the recorded music business to enable the widespread success of thousands of companies, each paying fair but not bone-crushing royalties back to labels, artists and publishers. But the high royalty rates imposed upon startups, even after clear signs over the past 19 years that the strategy killed companies, has prevented a healthy ecosystem from emerging. It?s a bed the music industry made for itself, and now it is left to lie in it.
Not only does this crush lots of interesting companies, the history of this sort of destruction has served as a giant warning sign to entrepreneurs. Years back we wrote about entrepreneur Tyler Crowley explaining how this kind of history makes entrepreneurs steer clear of doing anything with music. His original post is sadly gone from the internet, but we’ve still got some quotes that highlight the key points. His argument was that there are different options for entrepreneurs, which he describes as “islands” with different rules and conditions to “dock” at those islands:
For tech folks, from the 35,000′ view, there are islands of opportunity. There’s Apple Island, Facebook Island, Microsoft Island, among many others and yes there’s Music Biz Island. Now, we as tech folks have many friends who have sailed to Apple Island and we know that it’s $99/year to doc your boat and if you build anything Apple Island will tax you at 30%. Many of our friends are partying their asses off on Apple Island while making millions (and in some recent cases billions) and that sure sounds like a nice place to build a business.
And what about “Music Biz Island”? Well, the labels have made it clear you don’t want to dock there.
Now, we also know of Music Biz Island which is where the natives start firing cannons as you approach, and if not stuck at sea, one must negotiate with the chiefs for 9 months before given permission to dock. Those who do go ashore are slowly eaten alive by the native cannibals. As a result, all the tugboats and lighthouses (investors, advisors) warn to stay far away from Music Biz Island, as nobody has ever gotten off alive. If that wasn’t bad enough, while Apple and Facebook Island are built with sea walls to protect from the rising oceans, Music Biz Island is already 5 ft under and the educated locals are fleeing….
That doesn’t seem healthy for music. And that brings us around, of course, to Spotify. The music streaming giant has filed to go public, and Ben Thompson over at Stratechery has done a bang up job highlighting why even this hugely “successful” music platform looks like a disaster from a standard internet investment perspective. Its margins suck. Its margins suck so bad it’s still unclear if Spotify can ever make money. Because it’s the same old story that we described above, where the labels (who own a large chunk of Spotify — remember the equity demands?) are crushing the company in a way that is unlike basically every other successful internet company. Internet companies are built on the idea of huge margins, because the marginal of one more customer is minimal.
But not with Spotify. Spotify has to give over so much of its revenue to the labels that it’s nearly impossible for it to ever be a viable business. Ben points out that the revenue and costs numbers show that Spotify operates like any “well-managed SaaS company.” But it has a “marginal cost problem” in that the label deals (even ones that were restructured recently) guarantee that nearly all of the money that Spotify gets… goes right out the door to the labels.
Spotify?s margins are completely at the mercy of the record labels, and even after the rate change, the company is not just unprofitable, its losses are growing, at least in absolute euro terms:
Ben has all this laid out in his usual nice charts and graphs and such that are worth checking out.
But, what this all comes down to, yet again, is the stranglehold of a messed up copyright system. The fact that the labels can kill the golden goose over and over and over again is because of one simple reason: the artificial monopoly handed to them by the copyright system, and the power it bestows. It’s a market distortion. This isn’t to say that there shouldn’t be any copyright (let’s see if our usual trolls make it this far in the post or if they’ve already dashed off a comment about how I want no copyright at all…). But it certainly demonstrates how the copyright system is so weighted to favor the copyright holder that they can strangle basically any business that touches on copyright, and make those markets entirely different from basically any similar business that isn’t encumbered with copyrights and legacy businesses who, having failed to adapt themselves, now demand a king’s ransom from the companies that did all the adapting for them.
Filed Under: business models, copyright, economics, golden goose, margins, music, recording industry
Companies: spotify
Comments on “Killing The Golden Goose (Again); How The Copyright Stranglehold Dooms Spotify”
Preempting whiners some more
Holders, not authors or artists. They use their income to get those creative juices flowing. The creative ways they use to subsume the copyrights of others with a promise to make them ‘BIG’.
Re: Preempting whiners some more
Copyright never should have applied to the holders. That was well defined in the copyright clause of the US Constitution.
Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
Key words being Authors and Inventors. The entire system is unconstitutional. Solid, irrefutable evidence right there in the US Constitution. Yet it was ignored. And as a result, built the corrupt system we have today.
Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
And yet for the right price you can get someone to sell even their own rights away.
Re: Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
I think that’s what he’s objecting to: the idea that something the Constituation says may be secured to authors and inventors, can be then sold by those authors and inventors, without the “secured” part disappearing in the process.
I.e., “you’re neither the author nor the inventor of this thing, so no authority of the federal government can secure to you the exclusive right to it, regardless of what the author or inventor agrees to”.
To the extent that the courts have considered this idea, they have apparently concluded that value of protecting the private right of contract by permitting the sale of such an exclusive right outweighs the value of what would be protected by forbidding such sales – but there’s room to disagree with that conclusion, and I suspect that the commenter in question does so.
Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
Firstly, authors(which has been extended to cover all artists) and inventors have the “exclusive right” to their “writings and discoveries”, which are copyright and patent protections, respectively.
There is nothing in the constitution that says that that right is not transferable (i.e. sellable), which is what has happened.
The original holder of the copyright is the author/artist. If a corporation owns a copyright, it is because they bought the copyright, either directly, or indirectly via a commission or employment contract. An author/artist is granted an exclusive right, which they can and do then sell (or in the case of a work for hire, they sell ahead of time; future performance of a legal act being something that can and is sold all the time).
The IP system exists to protect, promote and reward the development of art and science; I believe it succeeds in doing so. IT IS NOT EFFICIENT IN ITS OPERATION, it can be improved (please, let’s improve it, its horrible, especially in litigation, length of protection, and fair use standards), but it does perform its function.
The system is Constitutional, and I don’t feel it is corrupt. Inefficient, yes, but not broken.
Re: Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
I think the logic is that, since the Constitution says nothing about the right which Congress can choose to bestow being transferable, to conclude that the right is transferable is to grant Congress a power (that of bestowing a transferable right) which is not stated in the Constitution.
And/or that A: the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to bestow the exclusive right on anyone but the author/inventor, B: the right only exists insofar as Congress bestows it, C: the act of transferring the right to someone else is equivalent to the act of transferring the bestowal to that someone else, and therefore D: since Congress does not have the power to bestow the right on anyone but the author/inventor, Congress cannot bestow the right on the recipient, and therefore the right evaporates as soon as the transfer occurs.
Neither logic has been accepted by the courts – ever at all, AFAIK – but they do seem at least internally consistent, and consistent with the wording of the Constitution.
Re: Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
As a software developer I tend to disagree.
Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
I disagree. Copyrights were considered assignable under the Statute of Anne, long before anyone even thought the US should be independent. The first copyright law in the US, Connecticut’s Act for the Encouragement of Literature and Genius of 1783, in the first sentence after the act’s preamble, provided that copyrights could be held by authors, their heirs, or their assigns (ie people they sold the rights to), predating the Constitution. The federal 1790 Copyright Act does the same sort of thing. It’s a standard feature.
Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
Haha. This comment, most of the comments and the article itself are just silly trolling of the people with actual talent- the ones that make it possible for Spotify to even exist.
There are too many streaming services. Spotify will choke and die because of the usual Silicon Valley stupidity: behaving like they’re already profitable. Go check out their salaries and the rents they pay for their overly garish offices; they’re hilarious.
-Drops mic and waits for the truth to be censored as usual.
Re: Re: Re: Preempting whiners some more
Yo that mike drop is copyrighted.
Equity
I was going to suggest that Big Music invest in those companies, but it appears they already have stakes in those companies. What I cannot get around is that they have equity, but are still willing to destroy the company (and whatever equity they have) to get more off the top. All in the name of control?
Further, as was pointed out in the article, despite plenty of opportunity to create their own services, Big Music has failed to do so. Do they really see a relatively small investment in creating a service such a burden? Or is it more their intent to bottleneck the entire music industry so long as they might have some leverage to increase the ‘rent’? What happens when that lever breaks?
We come back to that obscurity question. If their goal was more traffic (less obscurity) rather than more margin (likely more obscurity) they could embrace all these service companies, invest in them, help them to become profitable and spread music further than it currently is spread, which in turn creates larger revenues with fairly fixed costs. The other choice, more margin, will induce lower traffic which means likely less income, but even lower fixed costs, but would also make creating their ‘new superstars’ more difficult. It appears that they think margin rather than traffic is the answer, and likely because of shorter term, left effort intensive profits.
Can anyone help them to spell blind? Forrest, trees…nope can’t see anything but sand.
Re: Equity
Sure and when spotify goes broke who will own it? Most liekly the labels, so they won’t have to build their own, just take over spotify and change the rules to be whatever they want…. wanna bet it will be a $1.99 per song rental that can only be played while you are logged into their app, which is continually spying on you?
Re: Equity
Platforms like Spotify allow a relatively even playing field where a well known artists can show up right alongside someone just starting, and people can sample both to see which they prefer.
This has the potential to draw attention to the ‘wrong’ artist, and in turn raise questions as to why one artist should be required to hand over all the rights to their music to someone else under hilariously one-sided terms when others don’t have to do so.
Open platforms provide an alternative to the parasitic labels, allowing people to avoid them and go directly to their listeners/fans/customers, which means the parasites lose both the control and profits that they are ‘owed’, and they simply cannot accept that, have no interesting in adapting and would rather force the world to adapt to them.
Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
At basis, is NO different from any radio station since the 1930s. Sheerly mechanical. Spotify has NOTHING without artists. Period.
But I’ll be happy if you’re right for once and Spotify folds.
The advertising supported model TOO has been shaky since the 1930s. Since now pirates are able to steal the tunes and have local copies directly, WHY any of the giant outlets?
Now, the monopoly that you keep bashing is due to THE KEY AND TRANSCDENTAL MAKING OF PRODUCT. That’s not “granted” but stated in the US Constitution because an individual Right. Period. So it’s staying.
Re: Re:
By your logic radio should never have got off the ground.
And yet, here we are. An industry that’s supposedly dying year after year, built upon the backbone of radio.
out_of_the_blue just can’t stand it when due process is enforced.
Re: Re: Re:
“By your logic radio should never have got off the ground.”
It’s actually an extremely interesting story:
First, the U.S. nationalizes all radio during WWI. Despite his academic background, Prez Wilson couldn’t read the Constitution.
Then, after WWI, the U.S. created RCA for “all of us (citizens)”.
FDR then realized that he could bypass “mainstream media” with this newfangled radio thingy, so the FCC was created to make sure that politicians got free access to these airwaves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Air:_The_Men_Who_Made_Radio
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Once again you get it wrong. The Constitution allows for the creation of IP legislation. It does not require or demand it. Congress is free to revoke all IP legislation, or parts thereof, as they see fit. Of course so long as we have the current ridiculous funding system they will continue to take advantage of the bribes paid (in the form of campaign contributions and promises of employment after government service) and that will likely prevent them from doing anything in the interest of the public, as apposed to the corporations.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
You have no idea what innovation is.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Just like the tape, the CDs weren’t innovators either even though they allowed people to take music with them helping it spread like fire in the barn, right?
“Spotify has NOTHING without artists.”
True. But artists would be in a much worse position without streaming to take their work as far as possible, enabling audiences they wouldn’t be able to dream of if they weren’t there, right? Fair trade I say.
“Since now pirates are able to steal the tunes and have local copies directly, WHY any of the giant outlets?”
Because people pay for good services, convenience. Because a whole lot of people will support the artists when they feel it’s worth their money. The average pirate downloads over ten thousand tracks and doesn’t have the money to buy them all but they will spend money with stuff they like and, guess what, they know a lot of them because they downloaded stuff. I have paid for stuff from Finland and Japan that I’d have never spent money on if it wasn’t for piracy. Currently streaming as I decided to go with the convenience once I got the money to pay for it.
“THE KEY AND TRANSCDENTAL MAKING OF PRODUCT.”
Good luck selling something that doesn’t reach your potential customers.
“That’s not “granted” but stated in the US Constitution because an individual Right.”
It’s not. It’s a privilege that the Congress can give or take at their discretion. You are those entitled dipshits I see.
Re: Return when you know more than nothing about the topic
You obviously have not actually compared Spotify with the radio. With radio, you listen to what the program director selects when the director chooses to air music or commercial, and you have only the faintest chance of input into the programming. Spotify lets you pick music that you like, suggests surprisingly good new music based on what you like, and paying the monthly subscription gets rid of commercials. Oh! You also don’t have to listen to a corny morning show during the commute to work.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
There are now more people make a living by self publishing music and videos than those handing their copyright over to labels and studios. A lot of the self publishers are not dependent on copyright because they have gone back to the old model of creating art, that of patronage where they are paid to create the next new work.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
The average person probably does not want to bother with copying their entire music library onto however many devices they use for music listening purposes. A streaming service such as Spotify works just as well and with far less hassle/wait.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
At basis, is NO different from any radio station since the 1930s. Sheerly mechanical. Spotify has NOTHING without artists. Period.
A few thoughts on this. (1) If this is true, then why did it take nearly 20 years after the web was invented for it to come about. If it was such an obvious "radio on the web" then why didn’t it happen sooner? (3) There were earlier attempts at doing something similar and they all failed to catch on. If it was just mechanical, that wouldn’t be true. Spotify won by actually providing a much better experience. That you don’t realize that suggests you have no idea what you’re talking about. (3) Radio’s business model works exactly the opposite of Spotify’s. The more people who listen to radio, the more money the can make through higher ad rates. The more people who listen to Spotify, the more Spotify has to pay the copyright holders, which is part of what’s holding them back. Their business model doesn’t scale properly.
Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Masnick, if you keep hiding my comments — you’re back to that sneaky way cheating, and there’s an Administrator involved making the decision, admit it, that’s NOT mechanical — then I’m going to quit creating interest here. Whole chain of comments driven by my little bit of text, and you don’t even have the decency or bravery to allow it to be seen without extra effort. Phooey on you.
Re: Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Fist you are not silenced here, you just have your comments hidden by default. That is not being done directly by the Techdirt staff but by the READERS. I am one of the hundreds that do that by clicking on the red flag for comments that are abusive/trolling/spam. If you stop writing comments that are abusive/trolling, I will stop flagging them. Now go hold your breath until you turn Blue.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
You know who else isn’t an innovator…. big music. They just use the product of artists.
Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Yeah what AC said.
Labels are NO “innovator”, they just uses the work of artists. At basis labels, are Sheerly mechanical. they have NOTHING without artists. Period.
The labels don’t come close to providing the value Spotify does.
Re: Re: Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Yes, because Spotify pays for musicians to record music.
Oh wait, no they don’t, that’s what the labels do.
Try not to be a complete fucking idiot your whole life.
Re: Re: Re:2 Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
I’ll try. 😉 There are numerous documented accounts of labels actually NOT paying artists. Whereas the entire point of the story is that Spotify is and will continue to pay and pay until it’s impossible to pay any more. Hint: the Golden Goose in the title is… surprise, SPOTIFY!
Re: Re: Re:2 Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
Spotify pays buckets for use
Labels skim off 99.9+%
Artists get diddly/squat
=/= Spotify paying nothing to artists.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
“The advertising supported model TOO has been shaky since the 1930s.”
Yeah, that’s why NBC, ABC, FOX and CBS aren’t media empires.
That’s why when you turn on the radio there’s absolutely nothing being broadcast over the airwaves.
Because there’s no way to build a business on advertising.
Re: Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
So do the record labels. Yet, somehow, more people buy CDs, mp3s and use Spotify than go to concerts. Maybe because it is easier to go to a local sotre/website, than travel cross country?
Remember those ads about piracy killing music? Yeah, fun times. Music can’t be killed. But its evolution can be slowed, sabotaged. That’s precisely what copyright and the music labels do today, slow down and sabotage it.
Re: Re:
Spotify all but killed the major sources of pirated content. Suddenly the labels were getting paid for music they were not previously. And now they want to try to extract more out of Spotify (and every other similar provider).
If they succeed in killing Spotify, et. al., all they will do is wreck yet another source of revenue and fertilize the soil for more pirate sites to pop up. How is it possible they can collectively be that dumb?
Re: Re:
The music industry is fine. The recording industry, on the other hand, is absolutely fucked.
Re: Re: Re:
as long as they keep that stranglehold, the industries dont give a toss of how they keep it, who else gets hurt or what delays are put on to our expansion and upgrade as a species. above all, though, as long as they can sit back, do fuck all but keep coining it in while screwing the public AND their own artists (thick idiots still cant see how they are being used!), they are on a winner
By the way, kid: from out of the blue calling people "trolls",
“let’s see if our usual trolls make it this far”, while pretending that YOU are fit to advise entire industries on public relations is a good hoot! Sheesh!
WAY back I quoted Lew Kornfeld here (paraphrase this time): “You can’t please everyone, but you can defnitely avoid going out of your way to make them angry.” And yet you blunder on.
Re: By the way, kid: from out of the blue calling people "trolls",
And yet, the truth is still the truth regardless of who says it, even if you don’t think the person is qualified.
Re: By the way, kid: from out of the blue calling people "trolls",
Jumping in with faux offense in response to a general comment about trolls is definitely a way to prove that you are not a troll.
Here you have millions of people now PAYING for Music instead of pirating, and yet the Music Industry wants more and more from these company’s and they already can’t turn a profit.
The more people that sign up to Spotify, the more money they lose!!! After all these years, they still haven’t made a profit. They are so far in debt at this point. I would assume that they couldn’t borrow a bunch more money to keep the doors open, and so finally just went Public to get more money that way. I just don’t see them around in 5 more years at how things are going for them.
As far as I know, Apple breaks even. But they don’t have a bunch of freeloaders dragging them down. It’s not making Apple money but is a service to Apple users. Like other UNIONS. They, the Music industry would rather drive company’s out of business than working with them in a reasonable way. That goes for the unions killing a business if they can’t flee out of the country just to keep their doors open. The Unions don’t care. The Music Industry doesn’t care. So short sited that they are, they are basically going to be the cause of Piracy to jump way up once again. If Spotify goes out of business, how many of those users are going to switch? All those free users will be jumping on the piracy bandwagon instead.
The costs are already way too high. To me, the service cost is just way too much money for what you get anyway. Video streaming from Netflix is cheaper than plan old Music streaming. Why is that? To me, Netflix is a better value. I can live without music. In fact these days I pretty much do. Other than the free streaming from being an Amazon Prime member. I’m instead tuned into audio blogs instead. Music is overrated. Most of it is crap these days. Like everything else, the copy protection on music is way, way too long. Long after the person has DIED. Nothing ever seems to go into the Public Domain anymore.
Re: Re:
When copyright is presented as an economic right as well as a property right, there’s the problem.
The words “for limited times” have been ignored for too damn long.
Re: Re: Re:
I would put it a bit differently. “for limited times” isn’t actually being ignored, but it is being outrageously defined. The whole point of the limitation was to encourage more creative efforts on the part of the creators, who cannot create anything once they are dead.
Reading this post, I was reminded of the following.
Monty Pythons – Meaning of Life – The Crimson Permanent Assurance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSO9OFJNMBA
Illegal operations
> why is innovative company x making so much money when all it’s doing is making use of our content?”
There’s a story (similar to the kodi boxes), where they had plans to create some software to play videos and other content in a settopbox style devices. What killed the plans was that there was no reasonable way to get licenses to hollywood’s content, and their technology was completely useless without the hollywood’s content. Note that this kills your claims of those companies being “innovative”.
Reasonable people saw the problem from miles away and refused to start creating the technology, because it’s clear that once hollywood rejects the license application, the only alternative is to go dark – i.e. make use of hollywood content without the license and take risk of copyright infringement lawsuits.
But because many talented people reject the invitation to start creating video players etc for fear of copyright infringement lawsuits, there’s a lack of such people on the market — the market wants people who don’t care about the laws but instead are going to start a criminal piracy group. Obviously many existing piracy groups are quitting the activity after getting heat from lawyers, so there’s demand for more of them.
The content really is king in this situation, it takes so much effort to create it, that noone wants to do it themselves, but everyone and their dog can create a video player using some open source pieces they didn’t create themselves. Instead they all want to create the tech that just plays someone elses content and this is why they all scream programmers to use standard file formats like jpg, mp3, avi etc.
This is why we decided otherwise, and our plan is to create content ourselves. It seems significant enough challenge since noone seems to want to do it. We decided to reject the existing content formats and support only our own content. This is the the reason we can create stuff without copyright problems, its technically impossible to use content that someone else created in our platform and conversions from existing systems to our platform were made impossible.
This kind of technology choices – whether you want to create a piracy group or actually useful technology is what authors of software need to do. The useful tech is significantly more difficult to create than your average video player that plays existing stuff that are anyway available everywhere.
Re: Illegal operations
I agree creating quality content that people want to consume is hard. But if you don’t have a good (convenient, price-fair, etc.) way to get that content to the consumers then your content is worthless. Just like someone creating a distribution service or media player without content to provide is worthless.
It requires innovation on both parts to create value in the eyes of the consumer. Not saying the effort from both are equal but that you require innovation on both ends to make it work.
Re: Re: Illegal operations
Also, if your own proprietary service/player only does your content (and you are a new player to the market) then you are limiting yourself to a smaller number of consumers that will take the time, money, and effort to get your content. That’s why more popular services become popular, they work with more than a few formats or there is a ton of already liked content for those few formats.
Re: Re: Re: Illegal operations
Re: Re: Re:2 Illegal operations
People are creatures of habit and like things that are similar to their current interests, is the short answer. Also people tend to favor something that is backwards compatible with all their existing favored content.
If you already own music or movies but when you change to the new format you can’t go back and consume the old content you will be less likely to switch. Who wants to keep re-purchasing the content they like just because tech changed.
Now if you have a new stream/player that can do the new firmware all your older content the consumer will gladly use the new products because there is less risk and financial obligations to switch.
If you are talking about the fair use aspect, well see my first paragraph, people like he familiar. Also just because one found content entertaining in one aspect doesn’t mean there isn’t more to be loved if that same content gets morphed, tweaked, or re-done entirely.
Re: Illegal operations
Er… No. Just because your technology depends completely on the license from someone does not make it suddenly old. In fact – most of the technology is based on something, quite often patented or copyrighted. Imagine we could have wheel patented and the patent holder refused to license. Following your logic all those horse carts, cars – phooe, not innovative at all (as to wheels being crucial for cars imagine a car with no wheels at all – not in the engine, not on the road, not for steering). Or, say, Nokia refused to license their patents on GSM. Ooopsie…
Re: Re: Illegal operations
Based on the history with copyright holders why would anyone try to be a new player in that arena? I can see there is a need but I would just as soon say screw it and leave it to the copyright holders to create the service for distribution. Then I would avoid that service like the plague unless it was fair and convenient.
Don’t use spotify or any other streaming app. Used a Phillips portable CD player til I got a car with a CD player, now have one that reads off a USB stick. Never felt the need for one of those apps.
So copyright holders are screwing over people. Gee who’d a thought? And how is this new? Same story, different characters.
Steamboat Willie would like to talk to them
/yeah I’m old
//my lawn…get off it
Content is worthless without a platform.
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And because it is crappy and only took 2 minutes most people will never bother to even look at the content. You’re right anyone can make a platform today.
This is why you need innovation to create a good platform that people want to visit or makes it easier/cheaper to consume the content. You must compete for the limited space you want your content to fill.
I would guess that even spending 2 days on a website isn’t enough to properly innovate a good one. So just as above you can create content all day long but if no one can or is willing to put forth the effort to consume that content you have nothing.
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Sorry not worth my effort at the moment to go to some unknown website posted by someone I don’t know for content that was never described and locked to an unknown format.
Your content could be radically cool and even a game changer but… I don’t know or trust your platform right now, so I’m not going there until it gets more popular and others have first put your platform though it’s paces.
Good luck on making your content huge though.
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So why are we creating anything if simple trust issues are the real problem? Guess the content and the platform was not really needed at all
You say that like trust issues are the be all and end all of only creation. Products don’t make it to market worldwide precisely because some knuckle-dragging CEO doesn’t think that he’ll make an assload of money in another country, despite there being clear evidence of demand. So you get content and products that aren’t available in Europe or other continents. And it’s the people in these countries who are at blame for a decision someone else made despite willingness to give them money?
Also complaning that products are not available in your area is no good, if the real problem is that you’re refusing to use whatever is available
Right, I forgot that you’re the one who will fellate the corporations wherever and whenever possible. But you’re the guy who thinks that Wray is absolutely correct about his magical backdoors so that goes a long way in deciding whether to take you seriously or not.
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If you didn’t refuse to use local content, you wouldnt need to use products from other continents.
Bottom line, if you don’t provide products in other continents, you have no reason to complain when no money flows in from them. Insisting that everyone use only whatever they’re geoblocked to is bloody ridiculous. Is everything you use locally made? Hell, half the shit you use probably isn’t American. By your own logic you should have demanded that America provides everything and refuse to use any foreign alternatives.
But it’s a good thing nobody thinks like you do or international trade would tank harder than a lead balloon.
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Ah, so your definition of “local” now means anywhere from this half of the planet to the other half.
I am glad you’re not actually in charge of APIs or dictionaries that actually matter. (Or you might be, but since you refuse to say what they are I see no reason to believe that they don’t exist.)
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But why are you blaming the consumer for the producer not educating others?
As I said before you haven’t even told me what content you create. So am I just supposed to believe all my problems are solved by an unknown product. That is not how you create value for your content.
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Trust is an issue but you have failed to make a case for me to spend my time on new content hosted on a new platform that you have stated is locked in a new proprietary format. And as I mentioned I don’t even know what the content is. Why would anyone waste their time on your content?
That is the point I was making.
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It’s available but you fail still to say what the content is. In a limited time environment I want to spend time on content I know is worth my investment of time and money. Since you haven’t been able to even describe your content here or anywhere else that I visit I am, just like the majority of people, assuming your content is worthless or at least not worth the added time and/money to experience.
It’s not just a simple click of a link. I need to reset or setup filters permitting your site to load on my device and check the legitimacy of your site (yes, I’m that paranoid). Then decide if I even want to be exposed to whatever the content is you create/host.
Again you can create innovative content all day but if your platform can’t reach consumers (or create a desire in them to visit) then your content is worthless. To have a platform like that requires innovation. And what’s funny is even after all your posts you still haven’t created that desire, at least in me.
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URL technology is neutral, but the content it leads to may or may not be trustworthy. That said, I do not trust follow me for a good time, as that is a pimps line, and that is what you offer via a link seems like.
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Still not a lick of information on what your tech actually is. No names, no citations, just a whole bunch of “You can’t use what other people made, you have to start from scratch or I’ll be unhappy! Unfortunately I have to use what other people made. It’s all the consumers’ fault!”
Seriously, what is your tech and where can I avoid it?
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So it’s not actually implemented despite all the assertions that all of us have actually used it.
And you want to lecture us about how the expiration of copyright means everything in the past must be destroyed, and how FBI-only backdoors exist?
Really?
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Wow, way to backtrack on all the points you’ve brought up.
The issue with the FBI-only backdoors is their insistence that backdoors that only the FBI can access are possible, despite multiple security experts telling them otherwise. Hell, the FBI shot its own damn foot by having a fucking atrocious history when it comes to their own opsec. Any key they get is going to be useless if it ends up in the hands of somebody else.
Your initial claim of destroying things was not over things that "greedy companies" created. It was about individual authors who published something they regretted, and you claimed the expiration of copyright mandated this destruction of past content. That’s bullshit, and not ever mentioned in existing law.
If this is the sort of genius that runs whatever magical tech you can’t even put a name or a location to, it’s not as revolutionary as you think it is.
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What’s available? Telling me that it’s already implemented isn’t the same as showing me. I’m not doing your own work for you to prove to me that your magical, incredible stuff exists, you’re supposed to show that to disprove my disbelief.
If that’s a step too far for you, too damn bad.
It is very clear from this article that Mike Masnick DOES NOT understand the Hollywood entertainment business model which is the same as the construction model.
First a company is established which will engage in risky activity.
The first risk almost always comes about because of too many governments having jurisdiction. For an entertainment company that delivers its product by internet that is all governments in the world claim jurisdiction over. For a construction company it is almost everybody.
The second risk is almost always labor in some form or other. Any song writer, singer, producer, or entertainer, and there are thousands, can that their rights were violated in any government jurisdiction.
With that sort of open ended risk it is assured that some one, some where, is going to sue over something.
Once a high liability company has been established it is time for profits to be moved to a low risk companies. This is accomplished by charging excessive fees for intellectual property, production equipment and distribution. For example a second company is established that owns the intellectual property that the first company uses. A fee is then charged the first company that removes the profits from the first to the second. What is left at the first company is liability (both legal and financial) that insures failure of the first but success of the second. When the lawyers come knocking with suits at the first profits are protected in the second, third, or fourth level.
The first company does bankrupt. Left holding the bag is the fanciers of the first, the organizers, the suppliers of labor, and the holders of financial liabilities. Profits are still protected.
Rinse, wash and repeat under under different names.
MTV repeat?
When the record labels started demanding more money than MTV thought was worth paying, MTV stopped playing music videos after many years of being the original 24/7 music video station, and instead created its own TV shows to broadcast.
A similar situation could happen with Spotify, but if so, can Spotify convert to another business model as MTV did? Could Spotify survive by ditching the record labels and creating original content, or will the company be destined to fail if the record labels get too greedy?
Re: MTV repeat?
Spotify does not need to create content, just offer reasonable terms, which should not include copyright assignment, to the many independent artists out there.
"I'll turn back that clock, just you watch me!"
I suspect that the motivation to keep killing off new services is a mix of short-sighted and/or indifferent greed, where it doesn’t matter what happens to the service so long as they get ‘their’ share while it’s still around, and an attempt to turn back the clock to when they were the only avenue to publish and/or buy.
When you either went through them or you didn’t get heard, they had all the power, and they got all the money. As a result they were able to dictate terms, and it was their way or not at all.
If people however can publish, listen and purchase without having to sign their rights away then suddenly ‘my way or not at all’ becomes a lot less tempting. As such they probably imagine that if they can only kill off all the competing services then people will have to go back to them, artists and customers alike.
Missed the bus
The biggest problem with any such service is best described by the phrase “Missed the bus”. I bought my favorite music back in the 70s on vynil. I had hundreds of records. When CDs came all g I thought what I could and wanted on CD. Several hundred again – back when they cost $20+ each. When mp3s came along, I could rip what I owned- but if I was had to expand my collection, I had no industry options. What I did have was Napster and subsequent services. By the time Apple sold unencumbered MP3s (So I could play them on non-Apple devices too) it was too late.
Music is personal. My music is 50s thru 80s. They don’t make it any more… or if they do I don’t know.i downloaded everything I wanted years ago. If at the time a reasonable pay option had been available, I’d have paid. There wasn’t so the record(?) Companies “Missed the bus”.
Plus, today’s music sucks. (“Get off a my lawn you punks!”) Something like Spotify could suggest new music that best resembles what I like. But, missed the bus they won’t get the opportunity to suggest while taking my money
Sadly the book publishers are doing the same. A small few classic books are impulse priced ($3,00) but they are still locked into a platform. It’s music all over again. Text is even simpler than MP3 but by insisting not to give me data in a format I want and charging more that a physical copy – I can hear that bus going by…
Tl:Dr- give me what I want and I’ll pay. No? No.
Copyright was never intended to be weaponized
And large corporate (C) holders are using it as a weapon. Most notably the MPAA and the RIAA, but there are others, I’m sure.
Bad enough that holders can leverage their holdings to manipulate the market, but when they use it to prevent the market evolving in ways they can’t control, it’s too much.
IANAL, so I don’t know that what’s happened fits the bill to be a Monopoly or Trust, but to this layman’s eye, that’s what’s been happening for many years, now – it predates the internet.
The industry fought tooth and nail against DVDs, remember? VHS tapes and cassette tapes? Ditto. Tech history is littered with the shenanigans of these guys, and every time they have sought to kill change. None of their horror stories have ever come to pass.
It is, I daresay, the same old story, same old song and dance, my friends.
Re: Copyright was never intended to be weaponized
Copyright is NOT weaponized. I’m sure appears so to you pirates who are flouting all Copyright from Constitution down, will not pay to be entertained, just want to steal unlimited amounts of mindless drivel, and then blame the creators for wanting to be rewarded a trivial amount, but NEVER bothers me, only has advantages.
Now BOLDLY repeat what Techdirt CENSORS! -- Back to that tactic.
Spotify is NO "innovator", it just uses the work of artists.
At basis, is NO different from any radio station since the 1930s. Sheerly mechanical. Spotify has NOTHING without artists. Period.
But I’ll be happy if you’re right for once and Spotify folds.
The advertising supported model TOO has been shaky since the 1930s. Since now pirates are able to steal the tunes and have local copies directly, WHY any of the giant outlets?
Now, the monopoly that you keep bashing is due to THE KEY AND TRANSCENDENTAL MAKING OF PRODUCT. That’s not "granted" but stated in the US Constitution because an individual Right. Period. So it’s staying.
Note to self: write a little re-processor to add all them double asterisks if the childish "hiding" tactic is again being used.
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The labels are also purely mechanical, they do not create any art themselves but rather use lawyers and legal tricks to keep as much of the income created by an artists work as possible.
Re: Now BOLDLY ...
Captain jerk,
This isn’t star trek, stop boldly going into the nonsense that is your mind.
I would check into Arena Music if you haven't already...
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180302005652/en
I have
I have got all my music from either 1. ripping legacy CDs I have 2. some downloaded from Napster back in the day 3. quite a lot from Pirate Bay etc 4. quite a lot from playing songs on Spotify (free) and saving them using Audacity. What would cause me to hand over loads of money for music in a heartbeat? Being able to get high quality master tape uncompressed high dynamic range recordings. I would pay good money for that, so I can listen to music as it should be heard. Wouldn’t (and won’t) pay a penny for the crap formats (mp3, CD quality etc etc) they supply today