Good article on the last 100 years of the "Copyright Industry"

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/100-years-of-big-content-fearing-technologyin-its-own-words.ars

The conclusion of the article:

"Content owners aren't always wrong to say they're being unfairly harmed (one thinks of writers like Dickens and Tolkien whose works were reprinted in the US without payment, though it did help fuel a lucrative lecture business for Dickens), and lobbyists and trade groups would be derelict if they didn't conjure up worst-case scenarios and try to keep them from happening. Unfortunately, though, as we look over the statements above, the total result of this resistance to new technology is clear: it limits (or attempts to limit) innovation.

Copyright expert William Patry put it strongly at the conclusion of his new book, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, writing, "I cannot think of a single significant innovation in either the creation or distribution of works of authorship that owes its origins to the copyright industries."

The great irony of these debates is that most new devices become popular only because buyers really want them, which means they open whole new markets that can then be monetized by rightsholders."

Seems that few want to comment on this subject, but of course this subject is the "elephant in the room" when it comes to digital content.

It seems clear to me that eventually, the natural market shakeout process will doom a lot of rather good, but amateur developers. Just like content rights issues, this too has been the way of the world, from horseless carriage manufacture through electronics manufacture, movie manufacture, and so forth.

I think we may well end up in a scenario that is much like some worlds already are. For instance, World of Warcraft has a stable of professional content creators that don't worry about how popular their creations are, on an item by item basis. One enters that world and gets "everything" ~ except that distribution of some of it is apportioned on a basis of certain rules other than money, those rules are effectively "laws" in that world, and everyone pays the same subscription rate.

I think that's where we may be headed. And that may be a very sad future for Joe Average ~ the same kind of future that brought us globalisation and WalMart. Great for Joe's consumer needs, but very destructive to him from a job and creativity standpoint.

Innovation is a fickle god to pray to. While innovation flourishes in many industries, it is utterly out of the hands of Joe Average in most, and completely belongs to the megacorporation that can afford to pursue it.


I would strongly recommend this series for a very good look at where we have been, and where we are headed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_%28TV_series%29

Yes, from 1978.