End diversity! Pilory Pirates!
p2pnet.net news:- The war against so-called ‘pirates’ and file sharers, the latter ranking with counterfeiters and copyright infringers, according to the entertainment cartels, is about to be ramped up exponentially.
Also expect to see renewed efforts on the part of online advertisers to dig even more deeply into your wallets.
“Illegal music and video downloads” may have driven the use of high-speed Internet, “a positive for the phone companies,” but things have changed now the carriers are in a content distribution business, Dow Jones has Bob Wright, vice-chairman of GE and chairman and ceo of NBC Universal, parent company of NBC News, declaring.
“We are in the same boat – that is, we are all in the video business, the distribution business, and in the advertising business – or, rather, the business of aggregating audiences and delivering them to advertisers,” he told NXTComm in Chicago [our emphasis].
The entertainment and software cartels, “have collectively and singly promoted the purely commercial concept of copyright infringement into a major ‘crime’ on a par with robbery and murder,” p2pnet posted recently, going on:
“But that doesn’t mean intellectual property offences have become far more serious than in the past. Rather, it shows just how easily the cartels are able to manipulate the mainstream press and through it, public opinion. Now they’re using organisations with absolutely no connection to music and movies to further their campaign of abusing international administrations and enforcement agencies as they work to both maintain the status quo, and gain control of how, and by whom, product is distributed online.”
Piracy poses a competitive threat, Dow Jones has Wright saying.
Interestingly, at Mipcom last year, “We understand now that piracy is a business model,” Disney co-chair Anne Sweeney declared.
“It exists to serve a need in the market for consumers who want TV content on demand. Pirates compete the same way we do – through quality, price and availability. “We don’t like the model but we realise it’s competitive enough to make it a major competitor going forward.”
Wright wants the telcos and entertainment cartels to work together to identify customers who’ve, “illegally uploaded or downloaded content”. He says the carriers, “can also monitor and punish customers who act illegally”.
Dream on? Not according to Wright. Six of the eight largest Internet service providers, “will have a program in place by the end of the year,” he warns.
Other “challenges” include the need for the industry to establish an advertising model with “more personalized and interactive advertising,” particularly where mobile handset are concerned, he states, because, “The traditional 30-second spot on television isn’t going to be enough anymore.”
He’s also demanding an end to diversity via the standardization of technology for different services and video offerings.
“We can’t invest in new ways to engage our audience … if we have to navigate through 200 different ways to enable these services,” he said.
Heaven forbid.
Also See:
Dow Jones – GE’s Wright:Telecom TV Push Changing Industry’s Piracy Stance, June 20, 2007
p2pnet – Corporate Power vs People Power, June 16, 2007
piracy is a business model – Hollywood lauds pirates, October 10, 2006
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
June 21st, 2007 at 10:44 am
The business delivering audiences to advertisers. Content is almost a secondary concern. This is the same reason that big music is pressuring net radio. The real problem is that consumers are watching/listening to all this content that has no advertising!!!
June 21st, 2007 at 4:36 pm
This may have some interesting unintended consequences. If the corporate systems start to make their customers afraid to use them, the next step could well be wireless computer to computer networks, which will have no connection to the firms which are using monitoring methods. The interactions which some wish to monitor may move completely outside the ability of anyone to monitor in a meaningful way, particularly in the larger cities and so forth.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:48 pm
I for one will tell you that since I’ve fallen out of the tv loop and no longer get it, I have become sensitized to the despicable commercial. While corporations are all for a new income or increasing an income stream, on my end as a viewer, it does nothing but turn me away from whatever site is using it and as a result the content as well.
I don’t really care how good the content is, I won’t put up with the commercial as the price to view. That is my choice and nothing the corporations can do will change that. I also vote with my wallet, choosing to withhold and not buy what I don’t like or the corporations that sponsor methods I dislike, such as the major labels that employ the RIAA, MPAA, and the like. I am an empowered consumer. I have something I can do about it. I excerise that power every time I am in a store. The corporations can not force me to change as it is my choice and not theirs. I chose where, when, and for what I will buy an item. They can not pull that money from my wallet without my ok. If the entire buying public did this, it would not take long for all these schemes on how to rip the public off to dry up. As a result you would get decent products at decent prices or no corporation to worry about over the long haul. Economic drivers would force these legal entities to straighten up and do right or suffer the wrath of the customer upon which their well being depends on.
Wise up customers, you not they have the choice.
I also refuse to go through voice menus on phones. I refuse to be put on hold and ignored so some business can make a killing at the employees and your expense. They don’t mind wasting your time, ever notice how the reverse is not true? When I get one of those hangups, I’ll hang up, call back and tell them I didn’t call to talk to a computer. I want a real live person to deal with or I can find a competitor that will. Call that eccentric if you will but amazingly, when you get one of those services that say the call is monitored for customer satisfaction, you would be surprised how you can use that to your advantage.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:26 pm
And I bet you’re a real joy for those underpaid employees to put up with. Good job on making their life easier!
June 21st, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I know how to be respectful.
It’s not the employees fault so it isn’t aimed at them. The business that employs them has shifted workloads to put more work on them so it can save the cost of hiring another one to do the job. That part is NOT MY PROBLEM and I will not be the expected solution by putting up with it. If you humbly never complain and go along with it, the next part will be something else you have to do in order to do business with them.
Tell me, do you enjoy making two trips to the cashier to get gas? One to pay for the gas before you get it and another to get the change after you’ve gotten it? I always pay for my gas. Why should I be made to suffer for the few and be treated like I’m some sort of criminal not to be trusted because I want their product? Sound familiar to you in any way?
I will not put up with a business that is there to make my life difficult so it can pay its workers less to do more. If that’s being a pain when it comes to expecting reasonable service by their paying customers where the customer is expected unasked to tote the burden of this business decision, then you betcha.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:00 am
I agree. Advertising has literally driven me away from tv and radio. I use several means to block online ads, and i have absolutely no interest in any other form of advertising either.
If some company out there is trying to figure out how to inform me of products they have for sale that i might actually be interested in buying, it’s easy. Put the details in your website and maybe i’ll find you when i go looking for that kind of product.
But the entire advertising industry can just STFU!