Comments on: Newspapers wonder: why aren’t we more like the beloved and successful recording industry?

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:15:45 +0000

It’s the AP conflating the two: they see their situation as analogous to the record industry’s and they see Google’s news service as the equivalent of Napster/Limewire/Pirate Bay (repeat to fade). But if copies are free, fast and perfect, it’s going to be very hard to stop people from making them, never mind that digital piracy feels very different from paper piracy – more like passing a newspaper along to a friend than firing up a private press and making rubbish copies in a garden shed. That difference more than anything is what’s going to make copyright infringement incredibly hard to prevent.

The Shirky essay is worth reading right through: he’s clear that there are lots of different models being experimented with, and it’s impossible to see right now which will work and which won’t. I think it would be devastating if journalism stopped. I don’t think that using political lobbying to try to force people to pay for it the way they’ve always paid for it is a particular good way to save it, and definitely not when it makes you treat your customers as criminals.

By: Nathan Ditum

Nathan Ditum — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:52:16 +0000

True, ‘You’ll miss us when we’re gone’ might not be a great business model, but given that it’s a pretty accurate warning perhaps movement towards a practical and mutually beneficial solution is a better idea than pointing at sad old media while it drowns itself. Being right about the fact that information exchange is changing exponentially doesn’t, I think, relieve anyone of the responsibility of contributing to the preservation of authentic journalism.

Not digging at anyone or anything, really, it’s just frustrating that so many who clearly rely upon and enjoy quality news are happy to hold their hands up and shrug. And – opening a meatier can of worms – I’m not convinced at all that because copyright infringement is currently impossible to police that it’s therefore legitimate, especially when we’re not talking about individual file-sharers but a prominent tech company like Google (is it valid to conflate the two as you have?).

By: Levi

Levi — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:13:27 +0000

Thanks for this – a timely article. I was wondering why those NIMBYs who blocked the Google street view car were getting so much attention.

I think the biggest concern is that the AP (much like the music industry struggling to respond to a change in the landscape) will successfully set some stupid legal precedents that may hold us back for decades to come.

But as you say, who knows? Maybe the revolution could happen sooner than we think- a global economic crisis is no time to be defending your business model against a younger, leaner technology…

Good website, I’ll read through it some time.