RIAA/MPAA: the Greatest Threat To Tech Innovation 278
TAGmclaren writes "The Harvard Business Review is running an article stating that it's not India or China that are the greatest threat to technological innovation happening in America. Rather, it's the 'big content' players, particularly the movie and music industry. From the article: 'the Big Content players do not understand technology, and never have. Rather than see it as an opportunity to reach new audiences, technology has always been a threat to them. Example after example abounds of this attitude; whether it was the VCR which was "to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone" as famed movie industry lobbyist Jack Valenti put it at a congressional hearing, or MP3 technology, which they tried to sue out of existence.'"
No need to understand.. (Score:4, Interesting)
No need to understand technology when in addition to having piles of money, you understand that buying law makers will keep your current system safe. This way you don't have to do anything different and you still make money.
Even as close as a few years back, I had the impression that Democrats somehow had the people interest in mind more than Republicans. I finally realized that both are the same. They simple represent different segments of industry which sometimes have competing views. One thing both can agree on, we are the enemy.
Off topic, I know but it still makes me sad. To think I wasted 6 years in the military to defend an ideal that doesn't exist anymore. You try to do something about it and everywhere you run into these stupid American hicks saying, if ya dont like'it git'out.
Well, you know what hick, I did get out. I have moved to Germany. Sure, I cannot have a gun without a really good reason, but at least I can laugh at you will all the people around here...even though it still breaks my heart to see what is happening to my old home.
Re:Simplistic view (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't call it voter apathy. I would simply say most voters are more concerned[...]When ordering priorities for a lot of people[...]falls pretty low on the list.
I think the distinction is academic. Whether you don't care, or don't care enough the end result is the same: Inaction. Now, I'm going to come dangerously close to Godwinning the discussion here, but I feel an excerb from Elie Wiesel's speech The Perils of Indifference sheds some light on this distinction. Keep in mind that what he was discussing was many orders of magnitude more severe than what we are talking about, but the principle is the same.
[Source [historyplace.com]]
Re:More important is the government’s collus (Score:3, Interesting)
I still basically "support" Obama –whatever that means, being from the UK. How anyone even slightly left of Bill O'Reilly could favour the alternative, the Cavalcade of Crazy currently coming from the Republican side is beyond me.
Still, I don't agree with your assessment that "The President tried change, and was rewarded by the people by taking away his majority in the house." I just didn't see the evidence of him "trying change" –the secret ACTA negotiations and white house events for the MPAA (incl. presence of FBI brass) etc. were all going on way before the Dem majority was lost.
I do understand your point that generally there is a great deal of FUD (must not mention Fox News... dammit) that results in many people being grossly misinformed and therefore punishing politicians trying to act in their interest (cough health care cough socialism cough).
Please if you know of significant ways Obama tried to make government less beholden to "Special Interests" (as he promised), give us some info.
Re:The VCR? No (Score:3, Interesting)
You are looking from the wrong end. Eventually, when a technology is commoditized, the Big Players adopt it - and 400 years is long enough to do so. But when printing first appeared. the Big Players of that time - the Church, the Monarchs - were horrified by this new technology and did their very best to control and restrict it. In England, all publishers has to operate from St Paul's churchyard, and every volume had to be approved by the King's censors, on pain of penalties on both publisher and printer. Of course, it didn't work - people got their seditious ideas printed in more liberal places (Netherlands, Geneva) and smuggled them in. But in its first days, printing was as suspicious a technology as file sharing today.
Re:Simplistic view (Score:5, Interesting)
The ostensible 'inaction' really has nothing to do with the core problem. The music industry has an evolved business ecosystem, and can blithely ignore whatever technology you want to throw at them.
They fund the band, they control the media and also who the 'stars' are going to be, they do the tour promotions, link to the ticket companies, edit the fan pages, and so on. This is an ecosystem. You have to kill most parts of it and re-do it to make indie music work. I have friends and relatives that are in the indie business. They compete with huge wads of cash and a set of walls at each turn of the road to riches. Their fans just want the music; they'd just like a little money to keep from starving.
In the motion picture industry (sounds old, doesn't it?) it's the same set of characteristics. Studios, producers, theaters, TV, syndication, stars stars hype stars. The indie film makers have their own festivals, but at the root of their desire is artistic expression and oh, gotta pay the bills. At each turn of the road, they, too, face an entrenched set of business ecosystems. To fight this, you have to replace the ecosystems, 'cause people have to eat and get paid. Lacking that, you're fighting windmills.