Clay Shirkey argues that our media companies are over-evolved, referring to precedents such as the Romans and the Mayans in "The Collapse of Complex Business Models." and he includes these graphs to refer to the additional over-abundance problem of media today:
About 15 years ago, the supply part of media’s supply-and-demand curve went parabolic, with a predictably inverse effect on price. Since then, a battalion of media elites have lined up to declare that exactly the opposite thing will start happening any day now.
To pick a couple of examples more or less at random, last year Barry Diller of IAC said, of content available on the web, “It is not free, and is not going to be,” Steve Brill of Journalism Online said that users “just need to get back into the habit of doing so [paying for content] online”, and Rupert Murdoch of News Corp said “Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use.”
Diller, Brill, and Murdoch seem be stating a simple fact—we will have to pay them—but this fact is not in fact a fact. Instead, it is a choice, one its proponents often decline to spell out in full, because, spelled out in full, it would read something like this:
“Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, or else we will have to stop making content in the costly and complex way we have grown accustomed to making it. And we don’t know how to do that.”
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
No protection; no pay
In all of the discussions about the right way to put up paywalls online, the fundamental truth that without protection there can be no pay has been passed over, for the most part.
Here's what happens when a procedure such as metering is put forward as a paywall model, when in fact it's quite susceptible to workaround.
Web developers have made BREAKTHEPAYWALL, which erases the cookies that keep track of reading habits to validate when payment would kick in for a reader.
Here's the story from PaidContent.co.uk:
Remember BugMeNot.com? The site was started in 2003 to let users, peeved by a growing crop of news site registration walls, borrow someone else’s login.
Seven years on - for registration wall workaround, read pay wall hack. Web developers have made BreakThePayWall, a browser extension that helps users overcome part of news publishers’ subscription strategy.
Available for Internet Explorer and soon, Firefox, BreakThePayWall works mainly by deleting cookies sites use to limit the number of stories users can read before having to subscribe. Deleting the cookies means the publisher’s site forgets how close the reader is to the “pay up” threshold.
In theory, it could be a challenge to those that use Google’s First-Click-Free scheme, which publishers can use to let searchers read only up to five articles per month before subscribing. No BreakThePayWall user numbers are available and the hack seems unlikely to severely impact publishers’ strategies because it has not gained widespread attention on the web.
But it is a clear response to the recent re-emergence of paywalls and may prompt proprietors to think of new techniques. It’s basically a sign of the times.
Web users can already employ the same technique by manually deleting cookies in their browser; BreakThePayWall just tries to make it easier.
“The paywall thing came about because of our annoyance at how easy it is to get around them,” BreakThePayWall’s developer, who did not give his name, told me. “Lots of compromises are made and basic security not adhered to. The utility currently uses cookie and referrer techniques - we have not come across any other techniques… yet.”
BreakThePayWall is thought to have piqued the interest of FT.com, which uses First-Click-Free to give five free articles per month to Google (NSDQ: GOOG) searchers.
The developer is also working on a hack that lets users more easily claim compensation for train delays.
Here's what happens when a procedure such as metering is put forward as a paywall model, when in fact it's quite susceptible to workaround.
Web developers have made BREAKTHEPAYWALL, which erases the cookies that keep track of reading habits to validate when payment would kick in for a reader.
Here's the story from PaidContent.co.uk:
Remember BugMeNot.com? The site was started in 2003 to let users, peeved by a growing crop of news site registration walls, borrow someone else’s login.
Seven years on - for registration wall workaround, read pay wall hack. Web developers have made BreakThePayWall, a browser extension that helps users overcome part of news publishers’ subscription strategy.
Available for Internet Explorer and soon, Firefox, BreakThePayWall works mainly by deleting cookies sites use to limit the number of stories users can read before having to subscribe. Deleting the cookies means the publisher’s site forgets how close the reader is to the “pay up” threshold.
In theory, it could be a challenge to those that use Google’s First-Click-Free scheme, which publishers can use to let searchers read only up to five articles per month before subscribing. No BreakThePayWall user numbers are available and the hack seems unlikely to severely impact publishers’ strategies because it has not gained widespread attention on the web.
But it is a clear response to the recent re-emergence of paywalls and may prompt proprietors to think of new techniques. It’s basically a sign of the times.
Web users can already employ the same technique by manually deleting cookies in their browser; BreakThePayWall just tries to make it easier.
“The paywall thing came about because of our annoyance at how easy it is to get around them,” BreakThePayWall’s developer, who did not give his name, told me. “Lots of compromises are made and basic security not adhered to. The utility currently uses cookie and referrer techniques - we have not come across any other techniques… yet.”
BreakThePayWall is thought to have piqued the interest of FT.com, which uses First-Click-Free to give five free articles per month to Google (NSDQ: GOOG) searchers.
The developer is also working on a hack that lets users more easily claim compensation for train delays.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Copy rite
The rite of copyright must change to be fair to everyone who isn't digital. I believe as this New York Times Oped contributor points out. that you can reprint and link to sites on line, that are impossible to quote in print. I am in the process of publishing a book from my blogs and although I have quoted at length from many media sources online, I can't reprint them in print without paying, including reprints from The New York Times. So obviously I won't be able to reprint this blog in print. You'll only be able to read it here.
Here's the full story as it appeared in The New York times on April 3, 2010 by Marc Aronson:
TODAY, Apple’s iPad goes on sale, and many see this as a Gutenberg moment, with digital multimedia moving one step closer toward replacing old-fashioned books.
Speaking as an author and editor of illustrated nonfiction, I agree that important change is afoot, but not in the way most people see it. In order for electronic books to live up to their billing, we have to fix a system that is broken: getting permission to use copyrighted material in new work. Either we change the way we deal with copyrights — or works of nonfiction in a multimedia world will become ever more dull and disappointing.
The hope of nonfiction is to connect readers to something outside the book: the past, a discovery, a social issue. To do this, authors need to draw on pre-existing words and images.
Unless we nonfiction writers are lucky and hit a public-domain mother lode, we have to pay for the right to use just about anything — from a single line of a song to any part of a poem; from the vast archives of the world’s art (now managed by gimlet-eyed venture capitalists) to the historical images that serve as profit centers for museums and academic libraries.
The amount we pay depends on where and how the material is used. In fact, the very first question a rights holder asks is “What are you going to do with my baby?” Which countries do you plan to sell in? What languages? Over what period of time? How large will the image be in your book?
Given that permission costs are already out of control for old-fashioned print, it’s fair to expect that they will rise even higher with e-books. After all, digital books will be in print forever (we assume); they can be downloaded, copied, shared and maybe even translated. We’ve all heard about the multimedia potential of the iPad, but how much will writers be charged for film clips and audio? Rights holders will demand a hefty premium for use in digital books — if they make their materials available in that format at all.
Seeing the clouds on the horizon, publishers painstakingly remove photos and even text extracts from print books as they are converted to e-books. So instead of providing a dazzling future, the e-world is forcing nonfiction to become drier, blander and denser.
Still, this logjam between technological potential and copyright hell could turn into a great opportunity — if it leads to a new model for how permission costs are calculated in e-books and even in print.
For e-books, the new model would look something like this: Instead of paying permission fees upfront based on estimated print runs, book creators would pay based on a periodic accounting of downloads. Right now, fees are laid out on a set schedule whose minimum rates are often higher than a modest book can support. The costs may be fine for textbooks or advertisers, but they punish individual authors. Since publishers can’t afford to fully cover permissions fees for print books, and cannot yet predict what they will earn from e-books, the writer has to choose between taking a loss on permissions fees or short-changing readers on content.
But if rights holders were compensated for actual downloads, there would be a perfect fit. The better a book did, the more the original rights holder would be paid. The challenge of this model is accurate accounting — but in the age of iTunes micropayments surely someone can figure out a way.
Before we even get to downloads, though, we need to fix the problem for print books. As a starting point, authors and publishers — perhaps through a joint committee of the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers — should create a grid of standard rates and images and text extracts keyed to print runs and prices.
Since authors and publishers have stakes on both sides of this issue, they ought to be able to come up with suggested fees that would allow creators to set reasonable budgets, and compel rights holders to conform to industry norms.
A good starting point might be a suggested scale based on the total number of images used in a book; an image that was one one-hundredth of a story would cost less than an image that was a tenth of it. Such a plan would encourage authors to use more art, which is precisely what we all want.
If rights remain as tightly controlled and as expensive as they are now, nonfiction will be the province of the entirely new or the overly familiar. Dazzling books with newly created art, text and multimedia will far outnumber works filled with historical materials. Only a few well-heeled companies will have the wherewithal to create gee-whiz multimedia book-like products that require permissions, and these projects will most likely focus on highly popular subjects. History’s outsiders and untold stories will be left behind.
We treat copyrights as individual possessions, jewels that exist entirely by themselves. I’m obviously sympathetic to that point of view. But source material also takes on another life when it’s repurposed. It becomes part of the flow, the narration, the interweaving of text and art in books and e-books. It’s essential that we take this into account as we re-imagine permissions in a digital age.
When we have a new model for permissions, we will have new media. Then all of us — authors, readers, new-media innovators, rights holders — will really see the stories that words and images can tell.
Marc Aronson is the author, most recently, of “If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge.”
Here's the full story as it appeared in The New York times on April 3, 2010 by Marc Aronson:
TODAY, Apple’s iPad goes on sale, and many see this as a Gutenberg moment, with digital multimedia moving one step closer toward replacing old-fashioned books.
Speaking as an author and editor of illustrated nonfiction, I agree that important change is afoot, but not in the way most people see it. In order for electronic books to live up to their billing, we have to fix a system that is broken: getting permission to use copyrighted material in new work. Either we change the way we deal with copyrights — or works of nonfiction in a multimedia world will become ever more dull and disappointing.
The hope of nonfiction is to connect readers to something outside the book: the past, a discovery, a social issue. To do this, authors need to draw on pre-existing words and images.
Unless we nonfiction writers are lucky and hit a public-domain mother lode, we have to pay for the right to use just about anything — from a single line of a song to any part of a poem; from the vast archives of the world’s art (now managed by gimlet-eyed venture capitalists) to the historical images that serve as profit centers for museums and academic libraries.
The amount we pay depends on where and how the material is used. In fact, the very first question a rights holder asks is “What are you going to do with my baby?” Which countries do you plan to sell in? What languages? Over what period of time? How large will the image be in your book?
Given that permission costs are already out of control for old-fashioned print, it’s fair to expect that they will rise even higher with e-books. After all, digital books will be in print forever (we assume); they can be downloaded, copied, shared and maybe even translated. We’ve all heard about the multimedia potential of the iPad, but how much will writers be charged for film clips and audio? Rights holders will demand a hefty premium for use in digital books — if they make their materials available in that format at all.
Seeing the clouds on the horizon, publishers painstakingly remove photos and even text extracts from print books as they are converted to e-books. So instead of providing a dazzling future, the e-world is forcing nonfiction to become drier, blander and denser.
Still, this logjam between technological potential and copyright hell could turn into a great opportunity — if it leads to a new model for how permission costs are calculated in e-books and even in print.
For e-books, the new model would look something like this: Instead of paying permission fees upfront based on estimated print runs, book creators would pay based on a periodic accounting of downloads. Right now, fees are laid out on a set schedule whose minimum rates are often higher than a modest book can support. The costs may be fine for textbooks or advertisers, but they punish individual authors. Since publishers can’t afford to fully cover permissions fees for print books, and cannot yet predict what they will earn from e-books, the writer has to choose between taking a loss on permissions fees or short-changing readers on content.
But if rights holders were compensated for actual downloads, there would be a perfect fit. The better a book did, the more the original rights holder would be paid. The challenge of this model is accurate accounting — but in the age of iTunes micropayments surely someone can figure out a way.
Before we even get to downloads, though, we need to fix the problem for print books. As a starting point, authors and publishers — perhaps through a joint committee of the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers — should create a grid of standard rates and images and text extracts keyed to print runs and prices.
Since authors and publishers have stakes on both sides of this issue, they ought to be able to come up with suggested fees that would allow creators to set reasonable budgets, and compel rights holders to conform to industry norms.
A good starting point might be a suggested scale based on the total number of images used in a book; an image that was one one-hundredth of a story would cost less than an image that was a tenth of it. Such a plan would encourage authors to use more art, which is precisely what we all want.
If rights remain as tightly controlled and as expensive as they are now, nonfiction will be the province of the entirely new or the overly familiar. Dazzling books with newly created art, text and multimedia will far outnumber works filled with historical materials. Only a few well-heeled companies will have the wherewithal to create gee-whiz multimedia book-like products that require permissions, and these projects will most likely focus on highly popular subjects. History’s outsiders and untold stories will be left behind.
We treat copyrights as individual possessions, jewels that exist entirely by themselves. I’m obviously sympathetic to that point of view. But source material also takes on another life when it’s repurposed. It becomes part of the flow, the narration, the interweaving of text and art in books and e-books. It’s essential that we take this into account as we re-imagine permissions in a digital age.
When we have a new model for permissions, we will have new media. Then all of us — authors, readers, new-media innovators, rights holders — will really see the stories that words and images can tell.
Marc Aronson is the author, most recently, of “If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge.”
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