Preserving Creativity Online

Sony Pictures' CEO says: "The major content businesses of the world and the most talented creators of that content -- music, newspapers, movies and books -- have all been seriously harmed by the Internet."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-lynton/guardrails-for-the-intern_b_207459.html

His view is that we need more regulation online, "rules of the road." I'm slowly thinking he's right.

I also think this is one important way America can be an economic leader in the 21st century. If we are not going to replicate our manufacturing success of the 20th century, and there are no indications that we will, we will have to set an example in other areas. Technology is one where I think we can shine. But we'll have to make decisions such as this.

 

People will always do creative things. Sony will not always be able to takes its pound of flesh for those creative things. There's a point to Sony's argument that's right, but oftentimes this sounds more like a company pissed that someone other than itself is taking the lion's share of an artist's money.

 

i'll play devil's advocate and give the rush limbaugh response:

regulation is bad. trust the free unregulated marketplace - on wall street and on the internet.

those "pirates" are in fact bold capitalists. the strong survive in free-market capitalism and the weak perish - as nature intends.

rush can't be wrong - he's got 11 million listeners.

 

I'll volley back:
The unregulated Wall Street and banking institutions nearly collapsed this country. And, we're learning, this country wasn't practicing "capitalism" as much as it was practicing "corporatism."

 

down with the man.

 

It's fundamentally impossible to prevent copying of intellectual property on the internet.

The internet *is* copying. Every web site you load is actually copied multiple times between the server that hosts it and your computer.

There was creative content before the concept of copyright, and there will be afterwards. But even if that doesn't turn out to be true, it's irrelevant, because you can't put the cat back in the bag. How would you even try to regulate it?

 

true, they almost collapsed the country. but they knew taxpayers would bail them out - so they got the last laugh. you have to admit that's pretty damn brilliant. you don't want to restrain that type of brilliance with regulation. according to rush.

 

People have to be paid for the work they do.
If, because of the Interwebs, it is no longer lucrative to create artistic work, then, quite simply, the number of people doing artistic work will drop off.
The quality of the work being done will drop and the value that the Internet brings — high-quality content for free — will go away.
Then the old chestnut of "you get what you pay for" will come back into vogue and people will shell out cash for high-quality content.
The best and most useful example is TV.
TV was and still is free. But if you want more than a handful of channels, you pay for cable or satellite, if you want premium channels, you pay even more.

And the Internet can be regulated the same way that the FCC regulates the airwaves. It just takes the government and public to get involved to create standards and then the government to enforce those standards.

 

plumbers and carpenters have to be paid for the work they do.


creative people think it's a privilege and do it for free. the reward is in the creative act itself.

how else do you explain all those unpaid bloggers.

 

There are ways for creative people to get paid that doesn't involve intellectual property as we've come to know it.

 

Because nobody will hire them now, but they can make their own business if they develop a following and thus force the Man's hand (the Bill Simmons Principle).

 

Oh yeah? Try us. [/any media company]