Sony: Case of Right vs Left Hand 282
Masem writes "Wired has an interesting article that explains the problem facing several of the megacorporations that have both content and technology divisions, as specifically in the case of Sony. The tech divisons want to offer the consumer all the possible options, while the media divisions are very concerned on DRM. While the two groups are trying to meet somewhere in the middle, they are still at odds about it, and also finding that that middle is becoming rapidly populated by other competitors (including Microsoft) in just how to empower consumers without sacrificing their copyrighted materials. Both divisions are trying to adopt to just changes in the landscape and hoping to find something that will work."
Split up (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Split up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Split up (Score:2, Interesting)
The idea of splitting a company just isn't part of the current corporate thinking. Article after article in business magizines are devoted to merging companies, but nary a one devoted to intelligently unmerging.
Though we may see that very soon when Time Warner decides it has had enough of AOL losing money
What about Palm? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Split up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Split up (Score:2)
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
If something's fairly priced, nobody's going to take the time to copy off something to somebody who doesn't wanna pay. "Go buy your own."
But what about... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about... (Score:2)
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. As the software industry shows, it's quite possible for a company to make money selling originals even when there's a whole industry devoted to making illicit copies. So long as a reasonable percentage of people prefer to buy legitimate versions, the creator can continue to do fine. There just has to be some incentive for people to pay for legitimate versions of whatever- software, music, or movies- rather than illegitimate copies. In the software business that comes in the form of tech support and legal threats against businesses that use illegal copies. In the movie and music business it's likely to be in the form of guaranteed quality of the copy. People who use file sharing networks constantly complain about the large percentage of poor quality files. Legitimate providers could very easily make money by charging a decent amount for the promise that the technical quality of the recording will be high.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
People who use file sharing networks constantly complain about the large percentage of poor quality files. Legitimate providers could very easily make money by charging a decent amount for the promise that the technical quality of the recording will be high.
If they did start to sell high-quality, unrestricted song files, then I imagine the quality of the files on the file-sharing networks would go up too, right? (They'd be the same files.)
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen to that. 99.9% of the problem with the movie and the music business is that their stuff just isn't worth what they charge. They've overproduced (there's more music and movies at the average wal-mart than I could listen to or watch in a lifetime), overhyped and finally overpriced their product. Result? People would rather go out of their way to copy than to buy JUST TO SPITE THEM!
How about ink jet cartridges? Ever wonder why a store like Staples has to put them behind the counter? Because their customers will take them because they aren't worth paying for (I personally refill, the penalty for refilling is an occasional ink-stain)!
I'm sick of the fscking razor blade business model. I'm tired of 80% marketing expense product cost. Now I will go wander back out in the desert from whence I came...
$G
Re:How about... (Score:2)
Re:How about... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's hard to compete against "free as in beer" (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people don't copy music to spite the record companies. (Oh, a sizable percentage of
This is one of the problems that unlimited internet access causes. (Don't get me wrong, I love unlimited internet access and would be very upset if I were charged per-megabyte fees.) I don't mind giving a friend a lift across town in my car. It doesn't cost me much at all, maybe $0.25 in gas or so, and 10 minutes of my time. I will think seriously about driving a friend from one coast of the U.S. to the other, because that is a non-trivial expense, just in terms of gas and vehicle maintenance. Time expense also becomes unreasonable.
There should be a similar thought process with sharing music. Giving a friend a copy of a cd you bought, so they can listen to it and see if they want to get more stuff by that group, is a reasonable thing to do. Giving 2000 copies of it to people all over the world isn't.
But with unlimited internet access... Giving 2000 copies away to total strangers costs you the same as giving one copy to a good friend. The only "cost" to you is your time to set up the client and music files on your system.
It's hard to compete with free.
Competing with quality or convenience? Quality won't work. It will be too easy for P2P networks to add the equivalent of karma. Add a crc value to the information transmitted in a file search. After a verified good transfer, compare the crc value. That lets you verify the other client isn't lying about contents. Then you can listen to the music, and "moderate" on quality of the rip. Not if you like the song, but if the rip is good quality. Enough "nothing but skips and cracks" votes and that client drops to the bottom of the search results. You just solved the quality problem on p2p networks. Convenience can be handled also.
It's hard to compete with free.
We love this when talking about Microsoft, and any other propreitary vendor competing with an open source product. But the recording industry (and the artists that want to distribute their own stuff without dealing with the Major 5 Labels) has this problem also.
I admire the problem... and I wish I could offer a good solution. I really think it will just end up being a version of Apple's solution. An advertising campaign "Don't steal music" and almost no real limitations enforced. Because nothing else will let the industry keep the honest customers, which I like to think are the majority.
Re:It's hard to compete against "free as in beer" (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what happens when you make so much music, then basically give it away to consumers over FM radio (or on TV) for 30 years... The entire broadcast business is based on this model:
Consumer: Mooches for free. Changes channels to avoid commercials.
Customer (advertiser): Pays broadcaster for commercials that consumers change channels to avoid.
Broadcaster: Pays for playing movies or music.
Labels & Studios: Churn out more crap that is simmilar to the crap that sold the most commercials for the broadcasters.
Exception: Theaters and live performances - customer pays outrageous price for tickets...
The problem with the internet is that it's the ultimate commercial skip.
Fair? (Score:2)
And who decides what's "fair". Because I sure as hell know that the customer's idea of fair is a lot less than what the company's idea is.
My fair price for the latest Britney album? Free, or even negative.
My fair price for the next U2 album - proably up to $30.
Your milage will almost certainly be varying like a motherfucker.
Re:Fair? (Score:2, Interesting)
The market decides. Hes not saying go tell Sony, "youre going to charge this, and no more!" Hes saying that Sony should give thier customers what they want, while still getting what Sony wants. Theres a balance and its called market price. The problem here is only Sony is getting what they want, the customers are getting screwed.
Re:Fair? (Score:2)
Companies know this and they make $30 a CD of you on U2 + $30 a CD of people who fall for marketing bullshit.
Now guess, do companies lose more money on copying U2 or Britney stuff?
Britney vs. U2? You're joking right? (Score:3, Interesting)
U2 is the product of marketing hype, even moreso than Britney. How many Grammys does U2 have? Realize that U2 is marketed towards thirtysomethings, Britney to teeny-boppers.
Look, it's a matter of personal preference. Personally I'm not going to be downloading any U2 or Britney anytime soon, I'd rather listen to Skinny Puppy or Muslim Gauze. YMMV.
But comments like $30 a CD of people who fall for marketing bullshit remind me of why we need to all boycott the MP....OMG the new LOTR movie is out I'm gonna be first in line!!!
Okay, back to the topic:
Sony's biggest problem is that, on both sides of the house, their (consumer-oriented) products are disposable. Or maybe that's their strength. I don't understand a civilization whose raison d-etre is the quick-flip, the economy of which has relegated works of lasting value (be it CDs that you'll want to listen to in ten years, or CD players that will still work in ten years) to a cultish minority that remembers when things were made of metal and lasted forever. Sony used to "get it", my Betamax built in 1981 outlasted four latter-day VHS machies. Not anymore.
Perhaps, if we're lucky, Capitalism will eat itself. Certainly, the sea change brought on by lossless copying vs. crappy content has Sony et. al. burning the candle at both ends.
Re:How about... (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be an improvement if the music industry gave better value. Lower prices may reflect that for current products, but the basic music CD has not changed for quite some time.
The production end needs to stop complaining that consumer technology has cought up and needs to move on to better products. Either put out smaller disks, or use much higher densities to give added values.
For example a multilayer CD that could be played on most current CD players but also contained video clips, session video or film of the concert. Perhaps just bundle a CD and a DVD for current CD prices and offer the CD only at a lower price.
Sure, they could copy the music for playing in the car or on a walkman, but you would need to buy the product to get the full value.
This would help both industries: new players required for multi-layer CDs or new markets for DVD players.
Cassette tape added value over vinyl by being portable and less destructable. Records were dubbed to tape but this lost quality compared to buying new tapes.
When CDs first came out they could be dubbed to cassette tape for walkmans and car players (and probably still are), but the CD added value by being better quality so people bought CDs rather than just copying borrowed ones to tape.
Now there is no difference between bought product and copied product the music industry needs to introduce that difference.
Of course DVD or mini-CD copiers will eventually catch up and the electronics industry will make much money selling these, so the next step by the music indutry should then be to some other way of adding even more value.
Better idea (Score:3, Insightful)
The first big label to say, "no no, technology is ou--my--friend" is the going to be the one that owns the industry. I'm surprised that one of these labels hasn't already contact Steve Jobs and asked him to help them "get with it" technologically. You'd think that at least one of the bean counters in accounting would realize that personal computers could greatly cut down on their cost. DRM isn't good for labels, versatile PCs which can hold lots of cheap digital music are. They should be offering free 64-96k oggs as samples and downloads for say.... $.75 a song for a 350K VBR Ogg or MP3. I give my friends music occassionally to sample, but if the labels did that, I'd just tell them to stop being a cheap mofo and buy the damn downloads.
Re:Better idea (Score:2, Informative)
The problem with this idea is that, under the current system, the recording costs come out of the band's share of income from the record. In fact, all expenses do, including marketing. Thus, the label has no incentive to save money, since their cut is unchanged.
Re:Better idea (Score:3)
The problem remains that you need to trust all participants to play by the rules. One person violates that trust and your content becomes valueless.
Re:How about... (Score:2)
In addition to purchasing more media we'd be buying high end (Sony) electronics to play them on.
As it is, we use old junky hardware and steal the media.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
But that is not really what DRM is about. Protecting against illegal copies is just an excuse, what they really want shows up in this quote from page 4 of the Wired article:
A digital rights management system isn't just a traffic cop; it's a powerful tool that gathers all kinds of information about consumers, from credit card numbers to listening habits, and dictates which devices can talk to the PC and how.
What Sony entertainment, and the other publishers are really afraid of is "money left on the table". A lot of that money comes from things consumers used to do for free, but they are in business of making money, not running a charity. If they have to buy a few laws to get extra control, they don't care if it hurts society in the long run. Let's close this post with another quote from page 4:
"If you're looking for logic in this situation - hey, it's the music business," says Launch founder Dave Goldberg. "There's not a lot of logic in what they do." But to Ehrlich, the logic is in not letting another company play music gratis when it could be paying. Precedents matter: If broadcast radio hadn't been exempted from royalty payments decades ago, for reasons hardly anyone can remember, the music industry could be collecting an extra $2 billion or so a year. "It's hard to change the old world," Ehrlich declares.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, not true. If price was the motivator behind music trading, then we'd also have more games/apps/other warez available on places like Kazaa. Surprisingly, it's not that well populated with anything but music.
Games cost $50. Think about it. I think the main reason games aren't so popular there is that game demos are widely available and are free to download. That's enough to make a purchasing decision right there. You don't get that type of service with music.
Re:How about... (Score:3, Interesting)
(2) Music has a much broader appeal (to the non-geek public) than games, etc., so it no surprise that it's traded more.
(3) Napster was for music only, and Kazaa is mostly about music. (The UI is very music-centric.) Most people probably have no idea that you can upload or search for anything else.
(4) People go where the stuff is. There was an infrastructure for geeks trading warez long before Napster or Kazaa, so that's where people look.
(5) It doesn't matter if it's on Kazaa or a warez site, the fact that people share games etc. means that people like getting stuff for free that they normally have to pay for. I think it's delusional to think that people are mostly download music to preview it, and then they'll go and pay for the stuff they like.
Re:How about... (Score:2)
You can preview selected tracks of music, you don't get a chance to preview the whole cd. Plus, if you don't like it, tough shit you own it anyway.
"(2) Music has a much broader appeal (to the non-geek public) than games, etc., so it no surprise that it's traded more."
Games are harder to buy than music CDs are, especially for college students. It's not a matter of MP3s being more broadly distrubted, it's a matter of need. Warez are all over the web. Strangely enough, P2P hasn't been a big conduit of that. You'd think the warez kiddies would be all over that.
"I think it's delusional to think that people are mostly download music to preview it, and then they'll go and pay for the stuff they like."
I think it's delusional to think that people flock to P2P because the music's free, yet the RIAA hasn't had a bite taken out of it's revenue stream. The only real concsequences the RIAA has faced with P2P is a severe dropoff in the sales of singles. Color me stunned.
Re:How about... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're wrong. The way I see it, it's more a matter of variety. Most video games are the same. FPS, empire, and a few others. The rules change subtly, but they act about the same.
Music, OTOH, has an incredable variety outside of the mainstream radio world. Even in a given genre, artists can have a completely different sound. Then there are the artists that don't fall into any genre except the catch-all "alternative-electronica-whatever."
So, it only takes a few games to give me a good sampling of the industry - civIII, OFP, solitaire, and a MUD. But even if I spent my entire day listening to music - Radiohead, Cabaret Voltaire, Pearl Jam, Beethoven, Mozart, F/C kahuna, whatever - I wouldn't scratch the surface.
you're not seeing the shades of grey (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to JUST preview music, I want to buy it, albeit, one track at a time, if they sold me an mp3 in 320kbps for $1, I'd buy it--even before napster, they were lucky to get one CD out of me per year. It's all about selling a product with a value people will pay for.
I'm not saying people don't like getting stuff for free, they do, but you're even more of a pessimist than me if you believe people will steal from you at EVERY opportunity. People are generally willing to pay a fair price for a fair product. Of course, if you try to fleece people out of their money, they'll strike back, and they don't need to do so in a legal manner. Remember, if you're too busy watching for the knife in your back, you'll just find it in your chest one day.
Pron.... (Score:2)
There's more free porn than you could throw a stick at, but there are still pay sites and I presume they do quite well (or not too bad).
There's not that much porn on Kazaa and that that is is more freek show than porn!
Porn is the uncrowned king of distributed media.
Maybe the RIAA and MPAA should swtich to porn grove and when hary meet sally.
Re:Pron.... (Score:2)
All I have to do to produce music is get an empty cake tin, and a microphone for my PC and record hiting the cake tin.
Seriously, there's a lot of porn done with studio lighting etc... a bit more than a digital camera and a couple of chicks.
Re:How about... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not that I haven't ever paid for software, it's that the software I've paid for cost what it was worth: $7-10. So much for cost not being a motivating factor behind file sharing. Bigger apps are obviously worth more, but $400 for Office is exhorbitant. The one normally priced piece of software I've bought was a $90 disk utility called Data Rescue X that seemed to be the only thing that would get my music back after one of my hard drives crashed. But you'd better believe I tried the software first.
Games cost $50. Think about it. I think the main reason games aren't so popular there is that game demos are widely available and are free to download.
This would be more accurate:
Games cost $50. Think about it. I think the main reason games are so popular there is that game demos are widely available and are free to download.
I don't buy something I can't try first. I buy shareware, I buy music I've already downloaded, etc. If I were in the market to buy a car, I would want to take it for a test drive; this is no different.
Incidentally, I think if more people would take this shop-around attitude to purchases, more people would have Macs...but I'll stop there before the moderators shout, "Off-topic!"
Re:How about... (Score:3, Interesting)
I was telling a friend of mine at lunch today that the SonicBlue court case is retarded. There are shows he likes, there are shows I like, there are very few shows we both like. It occured to me that if I had a VCR setup, I could tape one of my favorite episodes of my favorite show and convince him to watch it, perhaps give that show a chance it never had with him before. Either he'll like it and keep watching on his own (I aint supplying the episodes for him...) or he'll hate it and move on.
P2P offers a kick ass opportunity to give people better accesss to shows they never liked before. I *hated* Austin Powers until I watched it with my cousin. He was able to show me what the appeal was of that show. The internet with P2P provides a really nice solution to that problem. They could be using it to increase exposure! Why don't they do it? If they reward me by letting me keep the content if I convince other people to watch it, then they've got a virtually free advertising systme.
Oh well. Aint gonna happen because they think everybody who downloads it would normally have bought it.
It would be a mistake to focus too closely on this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It would be a mistake to focus too closely on t (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That sounds fair to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Corporations are not people, they are a corporate entity. They do not have the same rights as people. When was the last time you saw Microsoft walking down to the polling booth to place their vote?
Of course they should get a bigger say, this is a democracy.
This has to be a troll, a) because they shouldn't have any say, and b) because we don't live in a democracy. Voting once every five years for one of two viable candidates based on information fed to you by publicications and media who have interests in one or the other is certainly not a democracy.
"Will of the people" my arse!
Re:That sounds fair to me (Score:2, Informative)
Umm, the Supreme Court thinks differently:
Back in 1886 the US Supreme Court ruled during in a railbed dispute titled Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad. The ruling held that a private corporation was a "natural person" entitled to all the rights and privileges of a human being.
Re:That sounds fair to me (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, there were seven people in black robes who in 1886 wholly disagreed with you. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, The US Supreme Court ruled that corporations do actually have the same rights as "natural persons". That case was specifically about California taxing corps differently than people, but it set the precedent that corporations are people too. blech...
I have to nitpick... (Score:2)
The U.S. is not a democracy. It's a republic. Do some reading, learn the difference. It was made that way 200+ years ago on purpose.
Yes, the Founding Fathers that we respect so much didn't really fully trust the unwashed masses. And the more I see, the more I think they were right.
Hello? (Score:2)
What?
Umm, if you don't like what a particular company is doing, then simply don't support them (i.e.- don't buy their products). Unless they're doing something illegal, which in the case of Sony is no, then why do we need to set policy for them? I mean really, who died and made you God? How about I decide what I think is right for your personal life first and then you have to adopt to that.
Regulation has a place. Law is important. But you can't regulate and legistate things to suite your case, especially if there is no crime being committed. We're talking about music here, and not that great of music at that. The only crime Sony and related companies have committed is providing really horrible service and treating customers like criminals. So forget about them, or compete and offer better music and better service. But until you've run a multinational corporation and figured out how to do it "right," I think you should not be so quick to regulate their business according to your values.
Civil War or Finding a Balance? (Score:5, Interesting)
As the article says, Sony is trying to iron out the imbalances between it's content creation and electronics business. With the co-operation with Phillips to buy Interplay and a proven track record in widespread licensing of a technology to the electronics industry (think CD) then I think Sony has the ability to overcome the aparrant "civil war" (hype alert!) internally and become a dominant force in the new wave of entertainment.
The article portrays them as more balanced and willing to work it out for widespread consumer benefit than the sensationalist tagline of "civil war within Sony" implies.
This sounds like a spinoff article almost (Score:2, Informative)
Simple business lesson.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple business lesson.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simple business lesson.. (Score:2)
I'm glad the sig struck a chord with you. Unfortunately, I've taken some heat for it. People think that given the opportunity, people will buy music and then return it. Frankly, I think that's ridiculous. It's not worth the time. But if an album's so bad you're willing to make a trip and go through the return/exchange process, then the CD must really be bad.
It also bothers me that with this policy in place, merchants havea no inclination to pull an unpopular cd from it's shelves (or lower it's price).
The RIAA should not be granted leniancy like this if they aren't going to be innovative.
Just a suggestion... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they should work on becoming ambidextrous?
Re:Just a suggestion... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just a suggestion... (Score:2)
And I'm just mad that you beat me to it.
-Sinister Dexter
Right hand? Left hand? (Score:5, Insightful)
The entertainment industry is relatively old. Unfortunately the entertainment industry, while professing to be 'hip' and 'new' is actually very conservative, and new things frighten them.
As well most members of the music industry don't actually produce anything -- hence they call the musicians "talent".
The non "talent" members of the industry are actually looking at working for a living, and this frightens them. Hence being conservative. And wouldn't any pimp fight if his bitch was giving it away for free?
Like I said
Re:Right hand? Left hand? (Score:2)
It wasn't until the 1970's that Gutenberg had any competition with the personal Xerox, so there was an effective monoloply with the publishing industry that prohibited copylefting. Now, within the span of around 20 years, the end-consumer is completely enabled to produce near-perfect copies of virtually every media imaginable (print, audio, video and digital).
This may require a radical shift in thinking, perhaps returning to the wealthy "landowners" supporting artists rather than the relatively recent model of consumers supporting pop-culture phenomena.
Quote... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one guy I do not envy.
This is also the guy who determines where Sony's future money will come from, e.g. consumers buying expensive hardware, or media giants paying Sony (more than they do now) to secure their content.
He, of course, wants to please both hands.
He shouldn't forget: you can please some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all the time.
Therein lies his decision.
Re:Quote... (Score:2)
Seems obvious to me that the money will either come to Sony from consumers or will go to other companies (e.g. Apple, for making me an iPod and letting me mostly do what I want with it) who are willing to sell us what we want.
No kidding! (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, it also came with OpenMG, which was the only way to talk to it. Loading MP3 files on it required that they be "checked in" to OpenMG, which involved importing them into its encrypted store, and took well over a minute per MP3 file. Once they were in there, you could load them into the unit, but - here's the kicker - only three times unless you checked them back in from the unit to delete them.
Worse, while investigating all this madness, I found out that the standards this was supposedly complying with had NO SPECS for interoperability! Get a new player from another company, tough luck, your "secure store" is worthless. So unless you want to wait for the importing function to complete every time, you had to keep two copies of each MP3 - one cleartext and one imported.
It was a classic case of the software/media side taking a very cool device and totally ruining it. I returned it less than a week later.
Re:No kidding! (Score:2, Insightful)
don't know why I got that impression.
sri
Summary (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you who don't want to read all five pages, this quote humorously sums up the entire thing.
Instead, it's tried to play both sides. As a member of the Consumer Electronics Association, Sony joined the chorus of support for Napster against the legal onslaught from Sony and the other music giants seeking to shut it down. As a member of the RIAA, Sony railed against companies like Sony that manufacture CD burners. And it isn't just through trade associations that Sony is acting out its schizophrenia. Sony shipped a Celine Dion CD with a copy-protection mechanism that kept it from being played on Sony PCs. Sony even joined the music industry's suit against Launch Media, an Internet radio service that was part-owned by - you guessed it - Sony. Two other labels have since resolved their differences with Launch, but Sony Music continues the fight, even though Sony Electronics has been one of Launch's biggest advertisers and Launch is now part of Yahoo!, with which Sony has formed a major online partnership. It's as if hardware and entertainment have lashed two legs together and set off on a three-legged race, stumbling headlong into the future.
Think about the children (Score:5, Funny)
You say that as if it were a bad thing. Sounds like the humane thing to do to me. Hell, I wish they'd add this "feature" to their Celine Dion back catalogue too, if only to protect future generations from her screaching.
Re:Summary (Score:5, Funny)
For some reason, this reminds me of the scene from Space Balls where "Pizza the Hut" dies by eating himself ...
Re:Summary (Score:2)
Re:Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Businesses routinely "sit" on new technologies out of fear that they will cannibalize the sales of existing products. But that's short-sighted, because in the long-run, technology's advance can't be stopped.
Smart businesses aren't afraid to cannibalize their own sales, because they know that if they don't eat their own lunch, someone else will.
Unfortunately, the entertainment industry has a long history of not understanding technology [brain-terminal.com] and they don't understand the risks of opposing its growth
The good thing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sony vs. Sony? (Score:5, Funny)
Kina reminds me of all those Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla movies where the Big G has to fight an evil robotic double of himself. Mankind (in this case: Japan) always ended up being the loser as these two Goliaths fought. Let's home mankind doesn't suffer quite so badly this time around...
GMD
Break them up! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Break them up! (Score:2, Interesting)
Ludwig von Mises wrote a book called Socialism [econlib.org] (free and online) in 1922. Short version: when governments set prices, they are inefficient, since they don't know how much things should cost. Big companies run into the same problem -- is it better for Sony to do choice A or choice B?
Re:Break them up! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Break them up! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get how you see "a company that is too big is failing" and think "we should break them up". Isn't it an example of the market breaking it up, or killing them if they don't deliver?
---Lane
Better Business Models? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better Business Models? (Score:2)
These businessmen are pretty good at what they do, and doubtless they are thinking hard of a way to do this. AOL really isn't in a position to do it because they stand to lose so many customers. Unfortunately, they are the only existing company that is in any kind of a position to do it, considering their market presence and assets. The only service that could come up and work would be a brand new one set up by the record companies themselves, and they would need to figure out a way to be able to sell the songs for download but make it so that those downloaded files cannot be transferred to another computer. They've tried a few times, but they have all been too restrictive, so we dislike those options with a passion.
They are trying. They just can't see eye to eye with us. Nor we with them. That's the problem.
Everybody hates technology (Score:2)
Re:Change?!??!? (Score:2)
Maybe that can be the basis for their new business model?
The only reason we are able to own VCRs... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason we are able to own VCRs is because Sony went to the Supreme Court to fight a suit against Universal Studios and Disney for our right to time-shift television programs. When Sony bought Columbia, I knew it would be the worst thing they could possibly do.
I attend trade shows like the Consumer Electronics Show and even Sony's small regional dealer-only shows and have talked with many Sony employees about this. I can assure everyone that any Sony employee with any tech savvy is pained by this - their digital music player guys hate all the DRM crap - their Tivo guys worry about Hollywood trying to break the product - their HD guys wish they had an HD recorder they could sell, etc.
Most of the Sony Electronics employees I've spoken with wish that Sony would sell off the movie studio business and get back to what they are good at. But on the other hand, it's possible that with Sony's ownership of Columbia and their membership in the MPAA and RIAA, they are providing the only balance in those organizations? One shudders to think what they would be like otherwise.
Re:The only reason we are able to own VCRs... (Score:2)
Without the clout of Sony behind them? Not nearly as powerful.
I Wonder What Mr. Stringer Meant (Score:5, Interesting)
The I heard something along the lines of "What are your plans in light of the undeniable success after Napster of peer to peer file trading software such as WinMX?" The person being queried was Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony Corp. of America.
His reply was mostly the usual babble about legal means, being proactive in providing what customers want through services such as Pressplay, etc., but the he caught my attention when he qualified the foregoing with the statement: "even though we can chase people with viruses" (and that is a verbatim quote - I wrote it down).
I asked myself:
1) Does he just not have a clue what he's talking about?
2) Have recent legislative and minor legal successes given the recording industry a greater sense of omnipotence?
3) Is he aware of some gifts that US government about to bestow on his industry
4) Did he tip his hand?
5) Is he on crack?
My guess is mostly #1, a little #2 and some #3.
Re:I Wonder What Mr. Stringer Meant (Score:2)
Industry leaders perform autopsy on dot-com bustola ( March 11, 2001) [com.com]
"... "Sony CEO Howard Stringer, who kept the audience laughing throughout the night with a battery of quips, said, "Right now it would be possible for us, and I've often thought it would cheer me up to do it, you could dispatch a virus to anybody whose files contain us or Columbia records, and make them listen to four hours of Yanni ... but in the end we're going to have to get serious about encryption and digital-rights management and watermarking." ..."
Re:I Wonder What Mr. Stringer Meant (Score:2)
That would be cruel - isn't that how they got Noriega to surrender?
So his ideas are possibly as little as 2 years old, rather than the more typical 10-20 for that industry - a very forward thinking man. But Stringer did not appear to be joking last night. It's difficult to convey in writing the ambiguity of his use of word "could", but it almost sounded as if he was implying that they thought they had the right to do it, with impunity, but won't. Anyway, it was probably just a little FUDding on his part.
Too slacker for my shirt? (Score:2)
Agressive mega-corp finds that it has conflicting interests in its 300 year plan to become the most powerful single hive-mind on Earth.
It's interesting in a sever-the-corpus-callosum kinda way, but really. Am I being so slack to say I don't give a @#%$ what 'problems' huge corporations have?
Sony Mini Disc Data (Score:2)
They also released a 1.? Gig version of MD for those MD video camera, which again would have made a good floppy replacement.
Music MDs have a very primitive digital to digital copy protection scheme.
Profits (Score:2)
It would seem to me that the only solution Sony would be interested in would be one that does not impact on their profits. If they were to install some kind of DRM into (for example) TV's that wouldnt let you skip commercials, they would be (rightly so) worried that people would start buying other brands.
Cire
One casualty of this is battle is ... (Score:5, Interesting)
One casualty of this is battle is the Sony NetMD line of MiniDisc recorders. In fact, the entire MiniDisc media has been crippled by Sony just to satisfy their DRM needs.
The NetMD line of players/recorders allows you to record at 44kHz quality on the road. This is great for radio jounalists because you can buy a nice battery powered mic and record interviews wherever you go. The packing for the recorders fails to mention that while you can transfer 'songs' to and from your computer over the digital link, it explictly denies you the ability to import audio that you recorded from a microphone -- presumably to prevent digital bootlegging. So, to protect against the %1 of people that might use the NetMD illegally, the other 99% of us lose out.
There are allot of people pissed about this and there's a petition to Sony to get this featured turned on via a software update here [minidisc.org]. Over 2,600 people have already signed it. Go sign it too!
As for the MiniDisc media, if Sony would stop charging ludicrous licensing fees for players, we'd finally have a nice, caddy protected, alternative to CD-Rs.
Re:One casualty of this is battle is ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I still have to record via analog thanks to these fuckwit decisions. I'm a content creator, you bastards! And no, I'm not going to plunk down the cash for the absurdly expensive MD recorders that have a digital out. I can't afford it. Less money for Sony, more frustration for me.
After working for a few big companies I discovered that they are all run by monkies on crack. Depressing, really...
Comming to theonion soon ... (Score:4, Funny)
temporary problems will disolve (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Sony corporate heads can't find a resolution to deal with DRM within the company in such a manner as to remain profitable, it will remove the un-profitable segment.
While the music industry (RIAA, MPAA, etc..) is attempting to bring the cross to bear against IP infringments onto tech comapnies, evryone knows that DRM is ultimatly impossible. Not in that you cant make it hard for copiers to copy and distribute them, but in that if someone can hear/see what you have to show them, they can ultimatly record it, or re-create it.
Given that fact, most mega-conglomerates with .02 cents of knowledge will tell their music arm to re-adjust it's buisness model and become profitable, mainly because the fault does not lie with the technological arm.
It's highly unlikely any major company is going to tell it's profitable tech arm "stop making computers consumers like and buy" because they dont support their less profitable media arm.
something has got to go, the inherent un-balence between arming consumers with weapons that will hurt your own sales of other items has placed the mega-corps into a situation in which whey WILL have to choose what to drop.
DRM is not gonna cut it, file-sharering software will just incorporate DRM crackers or other such means to turn Copy Protected media files into standard media files (that seem to be non-commercialy owned).
Consumers will rebel against measures that are any more intrusive than behind the scenes protection, so you can forget about selling completely crippled systems..
As such, you can choose between forcing your tech arm to stop making computers that ultimatly can hurt sales in your media arm. Or you can tell your media arm to shape up or ship out.
Lastly, when you look at the nature of music and video, in that the average home user is now able to make their own easily distributed movies and music with relative high quality, you can see that the RIAA and MPAA are under attack from more than just piraters, but by home users making music themselves. The average joe (like me) can record his band for under a grand. If im not a "aucoustic" band, or musician, then my expenses vs. quality improve ten fold.
producing high quality music (without Microphones and other analog/acoustic gear) is CHEAP, and even live sounding music isnt too much more
As such i think we may be going full circle back into an era that resembles the times when local acts were the biggest shabangs, And THIS is what is ultimatly the killer of the music industry.
the film industry may not be too far behind. Although the average Joe is NOT gonna leatn maya or other film and 3d software at the drop of a hat, nor have those fields improved Enough to make their use quick and easy, they are on the road to becoming quick and easy. I dont see holo-deck style easy of creation in our near futures... but it isnt THAT far off (im talking about the ability to make chracters and render them interactivly with chracteristics almost on the fly, not about creating a full 3d environment around you)
once people can start making their own stories &or imaginations take shape with ease... the film industry will be having some serious problems.
ultimatly the buisness aspect to selling OTHER peoples content creations will suffer... and it should... the only reason these industries are so enormous and powerfull is due to the in-accesibility of the equipment they use to the average joe. I've been in several LOW-budget films and the expense for high-quality is greatly reduced from what it was due to tech. and this is only going to continue. As smaller firms (even individuals) become increasingly capable of creating competing quality products, the big guns will find themselves being shredded by hosts of little pirhanna's.
It's gonna take a while before these changes sweep through, and the old fuckers will fight it to the end, but ultimatly tech HAS been bringing increasing power to the end user. Go pick up ProTools Free from www.protools.com , or iMovie from apple to see the beginings.
now if you were a mega-corp... what would you choose?
--Enter the sig--
Read the article! (Score:2)
It's highly unlikely any major company is going to tell it's profitable tech arm "stop making computers consumers like and buy" because they dont support their less profitable media arm.
According to the article, the hardware division is barely profitable at all (like Matsushita, Hitachi, etc. not able to make things as cheaply as other Asian compititors). It said that the media arm brought in a fraction of the revenue, but virutually ALL of the profit!
Plus, we don't know how DRM will (if ever) become reality. In a free, competitive market I would hazard a guess that it would eventually fizzle and die. But I would think that Sony would want to keep this together as long as the issue of *forcing* DRM (through legislation) is still a distinct possibility. Even if Sony splits off the media from the hardware arm, the RIAA/MPAA will still be there, still pushing for legislated DRM. If it becomes reality, then there is no more conundrum on Sony's part: their hardware and media will be perfectly suited to one another!
wishful thinking (Score:2)
Quote from the article... (Score:2)
That seems to imply that Pressplay subscriber numbers is at least in the tens of thousands. Quite frankly, I'm shocked that it's even that high given the restrictions they put on the use of the content.
-S
It boils down to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Once again, as seems to be the case with so many of these kind of problems that involve the digital world, i believe the real problem is summed up on the last line of his (excellent) article:
If only it didn't depend on a bunch of music men who've yet to wean themselves from shiny plastic discs.
I think the real underlying issue that confronts us is simply a lack of understanding of the technology that is becoming available. These men have grown up in a "shiny disk" world, and judging by their actions i cannot help but think that they are fundamentally (and by no fault of their own) incapable of understanding the kind of societal and logical changes that are taking place as technology allows us to manage content more freely.
In short, i would predict that these problems wont really find resolution until the next generation that has grown up with this technology takes over the big businesses and is able and willing to do what they known needs to be done.
I just hope we can survive until then.
Anyone else? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Anyone else? (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider, first, the Marxist system of communism. Therein, no one profits: they are all given the same [insert thing of value here, i.e. food, money, etc.] no matter how they perform. As a [proven] result, the culture stagnates economically, socially, artistically and scientifically.
The elimination of copyrights is tantamount to instituting a Marxist model of economics of intellectual property. If I'm a producer of intellectual property, all my money comes from one of the following, Wages, Royalties and Contractual fees.
Wages refers to the idea that I may be simply receiving an hourly fee for my work. This is like a company code-writer. They're already shown to feel less motivated than when they have a stake in their creations.
Contractual Fees are akin to wages, and are a lump-sum payment for a peice of intellectual property.
Royalties are repeating payments each time a peice of intellectual property is employed. This is the best way to attach value to intellectual property, as you receive payment directly in correspondance to value of a product. Thus, the incentive to create new intellectual property is the greatest in a royalty system.
The ability to negotiate these fees is key for producers of intellectual property, as they can only negotiate the value of that property based on their ability to control the use/reproduction of it. If you cannot contorl that use/reproduction, then why should anyone pay for what you created? They can just use it for free.
Re:Anyone else? (Score:4, Insightful)
First, the law of large numbers over the internet (like with GNU/Linux) shows people will create without direct financial incentive.
Second, this article:h tml [salford.ac.uk]
discusses how scientific studies find that for creative intellectual work, reward is often no motivator, and can in fact have negative effects on performance.
http://www.isi.salford.ac.uk/staff/ab/motivation.
From the article: "The recognition that rewards can have counter-productive effects is based on a variety of studies, which have come up with such findings as these: Young children who are rewarded for drawing are less likely to draw on their own that are children who draw just for the fun of it. Teenagers offered rewards for playing word games enjoy the games less and do not do as well as those who play with no rewards. Employees who are praised for meeting a manager's expectations suffer a drop in motivation."
So, while what you say is essentially the "conventional wisdom" of our age, it may well not be correct as regards creative works.
Also, note that in order to enforce copyright in the internet age, we will need something equivalent to scope in the "War on Drugs" as a "War on Sharing". The War on Drugs effort keeps about a million U.S. citizens behind bars at a direct cost of 20-40 billion dollars a year. And before you laugh and say it is not possible for a million people to be locked up for using Napster and Kaaza, consider that people in the 1960s would have laughed at the notion of a million americans behind bars for non-violent drug offenses in the 1990s -- but it happened.
For the same amount of money, the U.S. could provide grants of $100K a year to around 400,000 artist, musicians, and writers who make their work freely available.
So, you choose which society you want to live in, however you label some part of it. And by the way, copyrights are monopolies, and monopolies are generally considered anti-capitalist.
Web pages on shortening or eliminating copyright (Score:3, Informative)
For support for elimitating copyrights or greatly reducing their terms, see Richard Stallman, especially here:g e&NodeID=650 [memes.net]
http://www.memes.net/index.php3?request=displaypa
and also Brian Martin's essay "Against intellectual property" (part of a large book -- _Information Liberation_)i l03.html [uow.edu.au]
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98il/
You can also see lots of ongoing discussion on Lawrence Lessig's blog http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/ [stanford.edu] which I have been posting at specifically in this Doc's diagnosis [stanford.edu] topic comments section here: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/mt/mt-comments.cgi?en try_id=889 [stanford.edu]
We must heed principle; let them heed profit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad to see that some replies in this topic have shown obvious confusion regarding the role of corporations versus the role of government. In the US, the Constitution was not written by corporations, nor should amendments (codified or de facto) be done so. That corporations have more sway than Joe Public is a given at this time, but times change and so do governments, for good or ill. The more apathetic the public, the more "oh, it's too late, they're already in power anyway" responses, the more things will decay in favor of the corporations. The more motivated the public, the more politicians will put the input of corporations in a subordinate (or at least equal) position compared to the input of their voters. Corporate money can only buy an election when the public is apathetic and detached from the political process, and thus open to glitzy ads. If there is a strong sentiment in the public to reduce or eliminate the effect of those ads, then the role of corporate money is also reduced or eliminated. In the end, the vote counts, not the advertising.
Problem??? (Score:2, Funny)
1. Sell customers CD-Burners to copy copyrighted material.
2. Upgrade DRM technology on media to prevent media copying.
3. Sell customers NEW CD-Burners to bypass DRM technology (try harder than markers...)
4. Go to step 2....
Ambidextrous? (Score:2)
IBM All Over Again (Score:5, Insightful)
They had an effective monopoly in computer equpiment. Sure there were competitors, but they ate the crumbs that IBM couldn't be bothered to bend over to reach. They had been the subject of a long standing antitrust investigation by the Justice Department which was dropped by the Reagan Administration.
Along comes the microcomputer which IBM names the PC. But, IBM wants to protect it's mainframe business, so they try to deliberately hobble the nacent PC so that it won't take away desktops holding a 3270 terminal. They don't build PCs with Intel's new 80386 chip.
The result, competitors fill the markets which IBM's internal politics won't let them fill. Compaq sells 386s hand over fist and IBM loses the market they made.
Now Sony makes the same mistake.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it -- Satayana
Re:IBM All Over Again (Score:2)
In '87, IBM shipped their first 386 based systems hobbled with the Microchannel Bus, but by then, the ship had sailed and Compaq and others were selling 386 besed systems.
I remember it first hand as well. I guess at our age, some memories begin to fog over.
Radiohead (Score:3, Informative)
Appomattox (Score:3, Funny)
There's always one other way to do something - your way. -- Waylon Jennings (1937-2002)
Not possible (Score:5, Insightful)
This system is not possible. The only system that will satisfy the entertainment industry is one which punishes consumers. The industry doesn't just want to protect it's copyrights (a goal with which I agree), but restrict consumer rights, making legal practices technologically impossible.
For example, the practice of burning a CD you legally own, so you can take that copy in your car with you leaving the original safely at home. To the consumer this is perfectly normal. To the courts, its perfectly legal. To the industry, its a perfect wasted, a lost opportunity for revenue. They want to make you buy two copies of the CD.
For the entertainment industry, DRM isn't about protecting copyrights, its about opening up new revenue streams. The problem facing the technology industry is the fundamental fact that consumers don't want to pay more for less.
Philips did the right thing (Score:2, Insightful)