Well into 2009 nearly all media production companies are continuing to lose their market share. The situation seems to be worsening by day. It seems that corporate content producers are starting to accept their fate, and are not fighting it as vigorously as they did just a year ago. Even historical law-battle between International Federation of the Phonographic Industry(IFPI) and Swedish based Pirate Bay which althoug
h ended in favour of the prosecutors, is hardly a victory for the music industry. The trial only added extra gasoline into the fire, music companies are hated more than ever, Pirate Bay and other file-sharing sites will continue to prosper and multiply. It’s from the category – would you rather be right than happy?
But the question I would like to raise in this post is: why have we become so reluctant (and even aggressive) towards commercial media content?
Is it as simple as it’s purely human nature to grab things for free when possible? Is it at the roots of the digital paradigm that all information should be free? Is it our revolt against decades of imposed and artificial scarcity? Is it revolt against all bad quality content we were often fed by mass media? And lastly, is there hope for media business?
The answer to all these questions, including the last one, is yes. I agree with Peter Kim and Jeff Jarvis who plead companies to network, aggregate and share their content rather than engage in “reactive right-click copy protection”. But I also side with those who to try to find a business model to sell their content, like Apple succesfully does.
I think that rather than thinking of today’s battle between users and corporate media producers as a cultural revolution of hippies in the 60s, we can compare it to the American Wild West history of the late 19th century. The anarchy was caused by the re-organisation of power. It was a war between a new nation, and the old conquers. In an undefined territory there are no political rules, no laws, and everyone’s got a gun.
In the war over the Internet we (the users) are certainly going to win, if we haven’t done so already. But it doesn’t mean there are going to be no rules and laws. And it’s not because the barons wants it that way, it’s because we prefer it that way.
There is a business model for commercial media content, be it news, games, videos or music. More than we appreciate free, we appreciate abundance, respect, usability and not the least quality. Apple got, and so did Amazon. We are surely on the way towards a new gift economy, and companies (not only in media sector) should be prepared to give value for free to get a chance to establish future business relationships. Instead of spending last money on lawsuits, or the little time they have fighting with bloggers – they should start figuring out how to survive, and how to succeed. After all, the Wild West internet era is not over yet.
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