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Happy ID everyone - hope you all have a good day, full of BBQ goodness, parties, fairs, and all kinds of fireworks goodness. Except for a certain beach in East Hampton...
GAH! I couldn't help it. I read this in the NY Times - paper edition. The only crappy thing - about the online version - is that the links didn't go to the articles specifically mentioned on the sites they only went to the main page of those sites. So, me being the perfectionist that I am, I went around and provided you, my reader, with the ACTUAL links that you were meant to be directed to, the source of the comments in each of the sections in the article below. I hope you appreciate it. Heh. I found it interesting that blogs are being referred to more often as sources of information. There appears to be a synergy between print/traditional forms of news and the blog world of information gathering and distribution as well as commentary/opinion.
July 2, 2005
Big Media's Power Plays
By DAN MITCHELL
THE legal battles over the future of copyright in the digital age are often cast as innovation versus the status quo, and in many ways, that's true. MGM v. Grokster is a case in point. MGM's lawsuit lives on, thanks to the Supreme Court, which decided this week to toss out summary judgments in favor of the file-sharing companies Grokster and StreamCast Networks, allowing the lawsuit to proceed.
Whether in victory or in defeat, opponents of big media often come to the same conclusion: the inexorable march of technological innovation will severely erode the power of giant media companies. "In the end," Wired News (wired.com) said in an editorial, "the business model in the entertainment industry is going to change, and these companies can either find a way to insert themselves into the new order, or risk finding themselves frozen out forever."
But media companies seem less interested in inserting themselves into someone else's new order than they are in creating and controlling their own. Most media executives by now realize that their methods will have to change. Their maneuvers - suing file-sharing networks or inserting "broadcast flags," which restrict copying and otherwise limit what media consumers can do with video content - aren't about trying to protect hoary business models; they're about keeping the wolves at bay.
"I think that the major media companies are trying to cement their control of media distribution and want to cut off competition in lots of forms," Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation who argued the case for the Grokster side, said in an interview with Mad Penguin (madpenguin.org). "So while they say that they are aiming to cut off piracy of their works, I think it's no accident that they are also striking out against technologies that can be used by anyone to create competing cultural products."
THE SCIENCE SANS THE DISMAL Mark A. Thoma, a University of Oregon associate professor of economics, got some attention in the blogosphere last week on his blog Economist's View (economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview). In it, he took on Robert J. Samuelson, a political columnist for The Washington Post, who wrote a column, "Time to Toss the Textbooks," which seemed to argue that because macroeconomics is a huge, complex, amorphous area of study that is always subject to unpredictable variables, its basic principles are meaningless, and it's just too difficult to understand.
The columns assertions included: "Economics textbooks once described the U.S. economy as mainly self-contained Globalization has shattered this model ... More industries face foreign competition or depend on foreign markets ... Savings and investment have also gone global ... All this alters the U.S. economy."
Nonsense, Mr. Thoma wrote: "I hate to be the one to break it to him, but we've been adding terms like net exports to our models for a long time. Even principles books now routinely cover this, something that wasn't true 20 or more years ago. I'd guess that's somewhere around the age of the textbook he references when he writes his columns. If I thought it would help, I'd send him a new one."
AD HOMINEM The technology guru and journalist Doc Searls took a look at online advertising in a recent entry on his new blog, IT Garage (itgarage.com). Almost nobody thinks blocking obnoxious pop-up ads is a bad thing. But what about software that blocks regular banner ads - the lifeblood of free online media? Mr. Searls recognizes the problematic nature of this option, but in the end he favors it. "This here is my browser and I can customize it any way I please," he wrote. The entry led to a spirited, wide-ranging discussion among his readers about the future of advertising in the digital age.
FALLING INTO BAD PATTERNS The gambling blog Die is Cast (dieiscast.com) features a gallery of casino carpet patterns from gambling dens around the country. "No one demanded it, but I felt the need for it," wrote the blogger, David G. Schwartz. Those who opted for the $3.95 prime rib special at the Lucky Duck are advised to wait an hour before viewing.
GAH! I couldn't help it. I read this in the NY Times - paper edition. The only crappy thing - about the online version - is that the links didn't go to the articles specifically mentioned on the sites they only went to the main page of those sites. So, me being the perfectionist that I am, I went around and provided you, my reader, with the ACTUAL links that you were meant to be directed to, the source of the comments in each of the sections in the article below. I hope you appreciate it. Heh. I found it interesting that blogs are being referred to more often as sources of information. There appears to be a synergy between print/traditional forms of news and the blog world of information gathering and distribution as well as commentary/opinion.
July 2, 2005
Big Media's Power Plays
By DAN MITCHELL
THE legal battles over the future of copyright in the digital age are often cast as innovation versus the status quo, and in many ways, that's true. MGM v. Grokster is a case in point. MGM's lawsuit lives on, thanks to the Supreme Court, which decided this week to toss out summary judgments in favor of the file-sharing companies Grokster and StreamCast Networks, allowing the lawsuit to proceed.
Whether in victory or in defeat, opponents of big media often come to the same conclusion: the inexorable march of technological innovation will severely erode the power of giant media companies. "In the end," Wired News (wired.com) said in an editorial, "the business model in the entertainment industry is going to change, and these companies can either find a way to insert themselves into the new order, or risk finding themselves frozen out forever."
But media companies seem less interested in inserting themselves into someone else's new order than they are in creating and controlling their own. Most media executives by now realize that their methods will have to change. Their maneuvers - suing file-sharing networks or inserting "broadcast flags," which restrict copying and otherwise limit what media consumers can do with video content - aren't about trying to protect hoary business models; they're about keeping the wolves at bay.
"I think that the major media companies are trying to cement their control of media distribution and want to cut off competition in lots of forms," Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation who argued the case for the Grokster side, said in an interview with Mad Penguin (madpenguin.org). "So while they say that they are aiming to cut off piracy of their works, I think it's no accident that they are also striking out against technologies that can be used by anyone to create competing cultural products."
THE SCIENCE SANS THE DISMAL Mark A. Thoma, a University of Oregon associate professor of economics, got some attention in the blogosphere last week on his blog Economist's View (economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview). In it, he took on Robert J. Samuelson, a political columnist for The Washington Post, who wrote a column, "Time to Toss the Textbooks," which seemed to argue that because macroeconomics is a huge, complex, amorphous area of study that is always subject to unpredictable variables, its basic principles are meaningless, and it's just too difficult to understand.
The columns assertions included: "Economics textbooks once described the U.S. economy as mainly self-contained Globalization has shattered this model ... More industries face foreign competition or depend on foreign markets ... Savings and investment have also gone global ... All this alters the U.S. economy."
Nonsense, Mr. Thoma wrote: "I hate to be the one to break it to him, but we've been adding terms like net exports to our models for a long time. Even principles books now routinely cover this, something that wasn't true 20 or more years ago. I'd guess that's somewhere around the age of the textbook he references when he writes his columns. If I thought it would help, I'd send him a new one."
AD HOMINEM The technology guru and journalist Doc Searls took a look at online advertising in a recent entry on his new blog, IT Garage (itgarage.com). Almost nobody thinks blocking obnoxious pop-up ads is a bad thing. But what about software that blocks regular banner ads - the lifeblood of free online media? Mr. Searls recognizes the problematic nature of this option, but in the end he favors it. "This here is my browser and I can customize it any way I please," he wrote. The entry led to a spirited, wide-ranging discussion among his readers about the future of advertising in the digital age.
FALLING INTO BAD PATTERNS The gambling blog Die is Cast (dieiscast.com) features a gallery of casino carpet patterns from gambling dens around the country. "No one demanded it, but I felt the need for it," wrote the blogger, David G. Schwartz. Those who opted for the $3.95 prime rib special at the Lucky Duck are advised to wait an hour before viewing.
