http://twitter.com/mandorichard
For the time being, I'm too busy to write long and allegedly thoughtful comments. . . .
For now, just follow my twitter feed: http://twitter.com/mandorichard
I've been tweeting about copyright most often, but other topics, too. . . .
140 characters per post--THAT I can deal with!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Whither Ruckus? Comments on interview w/ News Journal
As many college students learned on the night of February 6, Ruckus Networks, a legal music service that targeted college students, closed up shop -- without any prior notice. (The link is to a page at the University of Delaware that links to 3 stories about the demise of Ruckus.)
Shortly after Ruckus closed, I was interviewed by a reporter for the Wilmington, DE, News Journal for an article that ran this morning. Because of space limitations, the reporter omitted some of the points that I think are key to the story.
For instance, she correctly attributed to me the opinion that the demise of Ruckus will not lead to a spike in the amount of illegal music sharing on the UD campus, but she didn't have room to include the reasons I gave. As a result, since she also quotes students who think illegal file-sharing will increase, I wanted to say something SOMEWHERE about why I think the demise of Ruckus is not a big deal on UD's campus.
It's about the market.
First, Ruckus was bought last year by "Total Music"--a creation of Sony/BMG and Universal Music Group geared towards looking for ways to gain revenue from licensing music. The model Ruckus used ("loans" of DRM-protected music) is not providing a viable revenue stream. In fact, even Apple has announced that it's removing DRM protection from the music it sells. As I mentioned to the reporter, DRM may be starting to disappear from music the way copy protection began to disappear from software in the early 90s. Alternate models for restriction, distribution, and revenue-generation are starting to appear. I agree with Eliot Van Buskirk, a writer for Wired, that a "premium package" approach to Internet service--like cable tv companies have--is the likely model that we'll see next. (He talks about a Warner Music affiliate called Choruss in his Feb 9 posting.)
Second, even though royalty payments are still not sorted out, there are plenty of legal ways people can stream music from "Internet Radio" sites--many of which allow individual users to customize the music stream. Personally, I use last.fm both to log what I listen to and to generate a music stream of music I think I'll like. But there are plenty of others. Point is, there are a plethora of ways people can "borrow" music legally in ways analogous to what Ruckus used to allow. (Of course, if the royalty payment negotiations blow up, then this option may be curtailed.)
Third, there is an enormous growth in all segments of the intellectual property economy in "secondary markets." Look at how successful so many of the variants of Linux (open source version of UNIX operating system) have become. How? By using Linux as the free core, and then selling additional services. Lots of bands are giving away their music--in attempts to promote ticket sales, t-shirt sales, sales of songs for use in TV and movie soundtracks and so on. Or there's the basic "loss leader" approach--give away one track to entice people to purchase the rest of the CD or digital download.
Fourth, the music industry itself is changing. No longer does it require a six- or seven-figure investment to get started in the music biz. Free software, inexpensive software, USB mics, XLR-USB boxes, digital music duplication--it's gotten to the point that for a couple grand, you can get what you need to make something decent--maybe not super-duper, crystalline hi-fi--but still pretty decent quality.
So, what I'm getting at is that if we promote the other legal resources, we can keep the number of illegal file-sharers on UD's campus from jumping up. The market is changing; Ruckus succumbed to changes in the market (and an unrealistically optimistic business plan).
Of course, if I were the emperor, I'd also work to revise the copyright laws! But then I could teach a whole course about that!
Shortly after Ruckus closed, I was interviewed by a reporter for the Wilmington, DE, News Journal for an article that ran this morning. Because of space limitations, the reporter omitted some of the points that I think are key to the story.
For instance, she correctly attributed to me the opinion that the demise of Ruckus will not lead to a spike in the amount of illegal music sharing on the UD campus, but she didn't have room to include the reasons I gave. As a result, since she also quotes students who think illegal file-sharing will increase, I wanted to say something SOMEWHERE about why I think the demise of Ruckus is not a big deal on UD's campus.
It's about the market.
First, Ruckus was bought last year by "Total Music"--a creation of Sony/BMG and Universal Music Group geared towards looking for ways to gain revenue from licensing music. The model Ruckus used ("loans" of DRM-protected music) is not providing a viable revenue stream. In fact, even Apple has announced that it's removing DRM protection from the music it sells. As I mentioned to the reporter, DRM may be starting to disappear from music the way copy protection began to disappear from software in the early 90s. Alternate models for restriction, distribution, and revenue-generation are starting to appear. I agree with Eliot Van Buskirk, a writer for Wired, that a "premium package" approach to Internet service--like cable tv companies have--is the likely model that we'll see next. (He talks about a Warner Music affiliate called Choruss in his Feb 9 posting.)
Second, even though royalty payments are still not sorted out, there are plenty of legal ways people can stream music from "Internet Radio" sites--many of which allow individual users to customize the music stream. Personally, I use last.fm both to log what I listen to and to generate a music stream of music I think I'll like. But there are plenty of others. Point is, there are a plethora of ways people can "borrow" music legally in ways analogous to what Ruckus used to allow. (Of course, if the royalty payment negotiations blow up, then this option may be curtailed.)
Third, there is an enormous growth in all segments of the intellectual property economy in "secondary markets." Look at how successful so many of the variants of Linux (open source version of UNIX operating system) have become. How? By using Linux as the free core, and then selling additional services. Lots of bands are giving away their music--in attempts to promote ticket sales, t-shirt sales, sales of songs for use in TV and movie soundtracks and so on. Or there's the basic "loss leader" approach--give away one track to entice people to purchase the rest of the CD or digital download.
Fourth, the music industry itself is changing. No longer does it require a six- or seven-figure investment to get started in the music biz. Free software, inexpensive software, USB mics, XLR-USB boxes, digital music duplication--it's gotten to the point that for a couple grand, you can get what you need to make something decent--maybe not super-duper, crystalline hi-fi--but still pretty decent quality.
So, what I'm getting at is that if we promote the other legal resources, we can keep the number of illegal file-sharers on UD's campus from jumping up. The market is changing; Ruckus succumbed to changes in the market (and an unrealistically optimistic business plan).
Of course, if I were the emperor, I'd also work to revise the copyright laws! But then I could teach a whole course about that!
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Feb - May 2009
During the spring semester at UD, I'm going to use this pulpit to let the faux emperor's intellectual property tsar take over.
Yeah, I'm teaching a course in intellectual property for undergraduates again this spring--and all of us are amazed at the news stories showing up. We're posting news stories for discussion using the delicious.com tag cisc367ud.
The Fairey v AP copyright flap even made it to the Colbert Report on Feb 12. (Description [to assist with searching for the video]: Obama Poster Debate - David Ross and Ed Colbert
David Ross and Ed Colbert debate the copyright issues surrounding Shepard Fairey's Obama poster.)
Bottom line: he who has the best lawyer will win!!
If I were the emperor, I think there might be some reforms here..... Stay tuned....
Yeah, I'm teaching a course in intellectual property for undergraduates again this spring--and all of us are amazed at the news stories showing up. We're posting news stories for discussion using the delicious.com tag cisc367ud.
The Fairey v AP copyright flap even made it to the Colbert Report on Feb 12. (Description [to assist with searching for the video]: Obama Poster Debate - David Ross and Ed Colbert
David Ross and Ed Colbert debate the copyright issues surrounding Shepard Fairey's Obama poster.)
Bottom line: he who has the best lawyer will win!!
If I were the emperor, I think there might be some reforms here..... Stay tuned....
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