PEW Research Center Report: The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future download PDF
When complex business models collapse Clay Shirky on why online video will not generate enough revenue to support the cost base of existing TV companies.
[T]here are two ways to generate a profit: raise revenues above expenses, or cut expenses below revenues … for many media business, that second option is unreachable.
and
In [complex] systems, there is no way to make things a little bit simpler – the whole edifice becomes a huge, interlocking system not readily amenable to change. Tainter doesn’t regard the sudden decoherence of these societies as either a tragedy or a mistake—”[U]nder a situation of declining marginal returns collapse may be the most appropriate response”, to use his pitiless phrase. Furthermore, even when moderate adjustments could be made, they tend to be resisted, because any simplification discomfits elites.
Morozov “Think Again: the Internet” piece in Foreign Policy
They told us it would usher in a new era of freedom, political activism, and perpetual peace. They were wrong.
Digital power and its discontents. Morozov & Shirky discuss. http://dlvr.it/WKVr
An economist on rival goods and public goods Why content is a public good
The “fair use economy” is enormous, growing, and endangered by the relatively tiny entertainment industry
Jeremy Silver of Featured Artists Coalition on piracy, artists the music business and licensing
We want copyright to ensure that artists get paid for their work equitably in equal proportion to the effort involved in its creation, promotion and distribution. We want copyright to ensure that artists are credited by name for the work that they create. And we want copyright to ensure that specific moral and ethical requests made by an artist are respected. So if an artist says: “I don’t want my work used in advertising at all” that is adhered to. But that the default condition of their work is that it is available for use, to be licensed, from day one automatically – without need for negotiation.