Official Ares Free Download

p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- As of  December 1 Amelia Andersdotter  will become Europe’s youngest MEP, and the second for the Swedish wing of the Pirate Party — Piratpartiet, locally — the world’s first and only global political organisation.

She says on her website posted, obviously, before she was named as an MEP  »»»

My name is Amelia Andersdotter and I am 21 years old. I study Economics and Spanish at Lund University in southern Sweden. I am one of the top candidates in the 2009 European Parliament elections for Piratpartiet (the Swedish Pirate Party).

My political ambitions include a thorough revision and change of the copyright legislation, a complete removal of the patent system and a more balanced approach to security, safety and the market versus privacy, where the latter in particular needs to be taken much more into consideration.

I believe in strong civil rights, even in a digital environment.

I have been working toward this end for some three years, beginning in the spring of 2006.

During that period of time I have managed to take an active part in the development of Ung Pirat, the political youth organisation associated with Piratpartiet.

I have also taken an active role in the development of the party’s European political programme and the co-operation between Pirate Parties and Young Pirates organisations in Europe and around the world.

We’ll stay tuned, Amelia.

Good luck.

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November, 2009

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p2pnet news view | Advertising:- Shutting down individual websites does nothing to stem the flow of piracy, says a security ‘report’ quoted by news.com.au.

Unfortunately, the ‘report’ originates with McAfee, not the most reliable of sources.

It regularly produces schlock-horror PR puff pieces disguised as press statements, and experiences difficulty distinguishing real problems from unreal ones.

A new report, “shows a spike in the number of websites hosting copyright infringing content in the month that infamous file-sharing website The Pirate Bay was shut down,” says the story.

It goes on »»»

The site was forced offline in August by a Swedish court order following a legal battle with motion picture and music industry groups.

The Pirate Bay came back online a short time later, but, according to McAfee, there was a significant jump in new file-sharing sites during the downtime.

“The Pirate Bay example shows how difficult it is to ’stop’ data once it is on the web,” the report said, noting »»»

Although a website can be shut down, anyone who has accessed the content (pictures, games, text, movies, etc) may still have some and be able to redistribute it.

Oh, Really ?!

No need to stay tuned.

(Cheers, Andrew)

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news.com.au – Piracy increased in days after Pirate Bay closed, November 3, 2009
schlock-horror PR puff pieces – New McAfee ‘report’, October 20, 2009
experiences difficulty – McAfee targets p2pnet. Again., August 28, 2008

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p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- There’s a chance for two critical masses — those who make songs and those who enjoy them — to meet online, I posted in We are the walrus. Or, thank you Lily Allen in p2pnet.

I was referring to the creation of a2f2a.com,  launched by UK music artist Billy Bragg and myself a little over a month ago following the not-so-close combat between Allen and P2P file sharers.

The site is doing really well to the extent it quickly became evident we needed someone to keep track of input that’s continuing to flood in and Devil’s Advocate took on the task of digest editor. Below is the bottom line from the first entry »»»

1. Industry propaganda has been spread all around, leaving artists and fans inappropriately pitted against each other, when in fact both want good music released in a convenient format, at a fair price, and with fair remunerations.
2. Trust has to be rebuilt on both fronts.
3. File sharers are not “criminals” or “thieves”.
4. Artists are not “gold-diggers” looking to gain maximum wealth from minimal effort.
5. Artists want to be paid, and the fans want to pay them.
6. The Recording Industry is no longer essential to either produce or distribute music, however currently still owns and controls virtually everything that shapes the scene.

Yesterday afternoon I was re-reading some of the posts in a2f2a when my phone rang. It was a friend from the UK.

“Joss Stone is having a go at Lily Allen over the fie sharing thing,” she said.

She is?

Later, I also found a Reader’s Write on p2pnet saying the same thing.

Sorting the weeds from the flowers

“File sharing’s not okay for British music,” Allen had blogged in a post  picked up by the mainstream media and trumpeted around the world. “We need to find new ways to help consumers access and buy music legally, but saying file sharing’s fine is not helping anyone — and definitely not helping British music,” she’d delared. “I want to get people working together to use new digital opportunities to encourage new artists.”

I’d definitely agree with the last part. It’s one of the reasons Billy and I started a2f2a.com. The other is: contrary to corporate music industry  statements, online music fans would love to pay artists, as long as they know the money is going to them.

Now Stone, a UK soul singer who played Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII’s wife # 4 in The Tudors series, has thrown herself into the file sharing mêlée telling the Press Association »»»

She’s [Lily Allen] not going to win [the] fight [over downloads]. None of us will win that fight. So let’s just accept it and see it as something that can be beautiful and might change music for the better. It might sort the weeds from the flowers.

That’s good.

Not so good is the fact she also launched a personal attack against Allen who, according to Stone in the Guardian, “needs to sell records because she’s not a singer, and that’s not an offence to her because I think that she knows that too”.

Allen is “more of a personality than she is a singer”, Stone said in a “response to Allen’s increasingly militant stance against illegal filesharers,” says the story, which goes on »»»

For Stone, musicians shouldn’t seek to amass as big a fortune as possible – but simply support themselves. “Who said that musicians have to be millionaires?” she asked. “Who made this a rule? We don’t need that much money. We only need enough to make music, eat and go on tour.

“Of course, that’s all for her to say,” it says, adding, “Stone’s contract with EMI is worth a reported £7.5m.”

And back in 2005, “EMI felt able to give Joss Stone, a teenager it has under contract, $100,000 worth of uncut diamonds as a birthday present,” said p2pnet.

‘… we can work together to disarm the industry …’

Bragg, as a board member of Britain’s new Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), set up to represent the interests of recording artists, wants to see musicians and fans working together instead of against each other.

He was recently at a meeting with Intellectual Property Office officials in London.

“Talking afterwards we all felt that was very significant, a tacit acceptance of the FAC argument that non-commercial behaviour needs to be lifted out of copyright law,” he said in a comment post on a2f2a.com

Now he’s looking for support to break the cycle from file sharers, “particularly in the big fight that we will have next month when the government publish their Digital Britain Bill,” he said, adding:

“Copyright is the stick that they use to beat you and I believe that, as it is being debated at the highest level over the next six months, as governments ask for submissions on the subject, we can work together to disarm the industry to such an extent that they can no longer beat you up over non-commercial use.”

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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not-so-close combat – Lily Allen disses P2P file sharing, September 17, 2009
Guardian – Joss Stone: Lily Allen is not a singer, November 4, 2009
p2pnet – Big Music sings the blues, April 19, 2005

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p2pnet news view Music | P2P:- p2pnet frequent poster and a2f2a.com member Steelwolf told me about Debbie Chachar,  a Cambridge, Massachusetts, academic, music fan, and geek, “not always in that order,” she says.

She also runs the music, culture and technology blog zed equals zee.

Er, zed equals zee?

An assistant professor of materials science at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in the US, turns out she’s  Canadian, like me. Which, as she said in an email, explains the name of her blog.

Not only but also, she’s just finished a sabbatical in my part of the world – on Gabriola, one of the islands close to my home on Vancouver Island, about one-and-a-half hours  by ferry off the coast of mainland British Columbia.

Small world.

And she wrote this originally on zed to zee, reprising it later on on the Music Think Tank blog as What are music fans willing to pay for?

She had this as the intro: »»»

I’m not a musician.

I’m a fan.

And from my perspective, it’s clear that fans do want to support artists that they like.

“Here’s a list of things that fans will pay for, even if they can get your music for free,” she says, going on »»»

The music. First and foremost, many people will (and do) voluntarily pay for digital music, even if they don’t have to. This might be because it’s easier to use iTunes than BitTorrent. Or it might be because they want to support the artist. Or both.

CDs and merch. Atoms, not bits. You can listen to NPR for free. Do you pledge them money to support the programming, or for the This American Life DVD? I regularly buy merchandise as a way to support artists. I buy CDs at concerts, because I know the money goes directly to the artists (and because I can listen to them in my car).

Relationships. Anything signed or limited-edition is not just about the article itself — it’s about expressing a relationship with the artist. And relationships aren’t fungible. Jonathan Coulton and Amanda Palmer are two excellent artists who have close relationships with their fans, who in turn support them.

An experience. The canonical example of this is, of course, the concert — whether it’s $5 to see your favorite local band or hundreds of dollars for an arena show. But this also includes things like doing ’shrooms in a Lamborghini with your favorite drummer.

Something unique. A commissioned song is one-of-a-kind. It’s certainly worth something to the recipient.

A narrative. What’s a story worth? Apparently, quite a bit. The Significant Objects art project posts thrift-store finds for auction on eBay, along with the back stories. But the back stories are fictional, and are described as such. Nevertheless,  the items go for substantially more than their market value.

In conclusion, “What are you willing to pay for?” – she asks.

What have you offered to your fans? Other thoughts?”

Stay tuned.

Jon Newton - p2pnet

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November, 2009

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Texas Woman Sues Facebook for Privacy Violations Fux news
Worried about your privacy online? So is a woman from Texas, who’s suing Facebook and Blockbuster for posting too much information about her on the Web. Cathryn Harris found out after the fact that Facebook added a note every time she rented a movie from Blockbuster — a note that contained her full name and the name of the movie she was renting. “I wasn’t renting any movies that I’m ashamed of, but what if I had been? It’s nobody’s business,” Harris told MyFoxDFW. “They need to follow the laws and respect their customers’ privacy and not try to go behind the curtain.”

Does the RIAA let defaulters off the hook? Ars Technica
Judging by the number of times it has happened, plenty of accused file-swappers believe they’re better off not showing up to court than even talking to the RIAA—especially if the recording industry doesn’t bother to collect on the default judgments it eventually wins. Unfortunately for the file-swappers, it’s not true.

Warning over Facebook FarmVille game The Guardian
FarmVille, a free online farm simulation game available through Facebook, has been accused of generating “hundreds of millions of dollars” from unsuspecting players, many of whom are children.FarmVille has soared in popularity in the UK and US since its launch in June and has 63 million users, many of who are young teenagers. The game, which is the largest on Facebook, allows members to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting crops, trees and livestock. According to Zynga, the company which developed the game, users have built more than 40m virtual farms, more than 20 times the number of actual farms in the US, and on an average day purchase 500,000 tractors to till their land. On the surface, it seems a harmless, even beneficial, game, encouraging social networking, budgeting and planning. But Michael Arrington, founder of the Techcrunch blog, has criticised Zynga for “monetising” FarmVille. He said it encouraged players to buy in-game currency, Farm Cash, which allows players to progress faster. New users are given some virtual coins, but users who are desperate to buy the tractors, seeds, cows and sheep more quickly can click on the “Add Farm Coins and Cash” link to buy virtual money with real cash. FarmVille makes clear in its terms and conditions that Farm Cash cannot be redeemed for “real world” money, goods or other items of monetary value from Zynga or any other party. Once real money has been used to buy virtual money, it is gone.

Congress may require ISPs to block fraud sites CNet News
For the last decade or so, Internet service providers have been dealing with requests to block access to pornographic or copyright-infringing Web sites, or in China, ones that dare to criticize the government. Now a U.S. House of Representatives bill is taking the unusual step of requiring Internet providers to block access to online financial scams that fraudulently invoke the Securities Investor Protection Corporation–or face fines and federal court injunctions. The House Financial Services Committee approved the legislation on Wednesday by a 41 to 28 vote. If you’ve never heard of the SIPC, you’re not alone. It’s a government-linked entity that aids investors when funds are missing from their accounts, up to a limit of $500,000 for stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Only investor accounts that investors have opened with members of the SIPC–here’s a list–qualify for its protection.

Mozilla plans major Firefox interface overhaul Computerworld
Mozilla plans to overhaul the look and feel of Firefox for Windows, a redesign that will resemble Google’s Chrome in several key elements, according to screenshots and discussions on the open-source developer’s Web site. The visual refresh for Windows Vista and Windows 7 will likely take place in two stages. Part of the redesign will land in Firefox 3.7, a minor update now slated to ship in the first half of 2010, while the remaining pieces will wait for Firefox 4.0, a major revision tentatively set for release late next year.

Outrage as civic ‘angel’ sent to prison The Local
Per-Anders Pettersson intervened to save a 66-year-old woman from assault. But instead of being lauded for exercising his civic duty he is now about to start a prison sentence in a case that has sparked outrage in Sweden. Pettersson saw how Gärd Forsgren, now 69-years-old, was being attacked in her car in the vicinity of Nås in the county of Dalarna in central Sweden. It was then that he took a decision that would change his life and intervened. Pettersson dragged the assailant from the car and hit him twice with a jack. His plea of self-defence was rejected by the Svea Court of Appeal which confirmed a Mora District Court ruling from June 2007 to convict him of aggravated assault.

The Latest Lawsuit: Consortium of TV Stations Suing SESAC… Digital Music News
And the latest lawsuit? According to paperwork filed with the US District Court in New York, a consortium of local television broadcasters is suing performance rights group SESAC on charges of anti-competitive behavior. The class action asserts that SESAC is charging too much, using the dirty levers of ‘price-fixing and other anti-competitive acts’ to achieve its ends.

Bringing back Mickey Mouse’s dark side CNet News
In a world in which Disney defines its brand and the content it releases under its own name as being aimed at the broadest possible audience, Mickey Mouse is known largely as a feel-good, happy-go-lucky cartoon character. But that’s not how Mickey was in the early days. Back in 1928, when he first hit the world stage, he was a very badly behaved mouse. And now, one of the best-known video game designers in the world wants to bring back a little of bit of Mickey’s dark side. And he’ll get his chance to make that a reality. Warren Spector, the game designer behind the Deus Ex franchise, is working on a new game, Disney’s Epic Mickey, which is being positioned, in part, as a “re-imagining” of Mickey Mouse.

Giant crack in Africa formed in just days New Scientist
A crack in the Earth’s crust – which could be the forerunner to a new ocean – ripped open in just days in 2005, a new study suggests. The opening, located in the Afar region of Ethiopia, presents a unique opportunity for geologists to study how mid-ocean ridges form. The crack is the surface component of a continental riftMovie Camera forming as the Arabian and African plates drift away from one another. It began to open up in September 2005, when a volcano at the northern end of the rift, called Dabbahu, erupted.

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November, 2009

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p2pnet news view Music | Politics:- Earlier in the month, “Members of Britain’s new Featured Artists Coalition want the European Commission to help them recover their rights to their own music,” I posted here and in a2f2a.com.

As things stand, an EC “use it or lose it” copyright clause means recordings revert to performers if the producer or label no longer wants to market the recording — but only  after half a century, I said, adding:

“However, FAC members, including Billy Bragg, today met with senior civil servants at the Intellectual Property Office in London in a bid to get the cause whittled down to 35 years”

Now, “I agree with the artists,” says Paul Kamp, vice president, business development and corporate counsel at Backbone Networks, a company specializing in internet radio automation services.

He goes on »»»

The act would reduce the term from 50 years to 35 years seems like a lot but with life expectancy being 70 years or so 35 years is half a lifetime.  I would push for a shorter term than 35 years.

Here is my rationale:

• In the past there was a significant cost associated with publishing.  This ranged from recording the work, manufacturing the record, distributing it to record stores, accounting for the inventory, selling off returns.  With these costs in place the record companies were able to determine how economically viable it was to continue publishing because of the associated expense.
• Since the work is already recorded those costs are no longer part of the equation, they are sunk costs.  Everything is about distribution.  Yes, I know there is some cost associated with promotion but I think the critical thing is some type of availability.  Further, it is often the artist that would do the promotion.
• In the age of digital distribution there is no reason for a producer or label to not publish a work.  You can go to a “record service” like TuneCore and get the work published through digital distribution outlets like Amazon’s MP3 Store, Apple’s iTunes, etc.  All for a cost of a little over $100/year.
• Promotion in the digital world could be fairly inexpensive too.  The artist or record company could provide the works to Internet radio stations for broadcasting with links to purchase in the digital stores.  All the Internet radio stations I know provide links to the digital works for purchase. For example, listen to Pandora on your iPhone, there is a link to purchase the track from the iTunes store.  This is also true for Radio Paradise, Soma FM, AccuRadio , BAGeL Radio and all the stations on the networks we run.  Pretty straight forward distribution and free promotion.  Seems like there is no need to hold back on distribution after a work is recorded.

As a compromise, perhaps push for a shorter term, i.e. 15 years and have the artists pay for publishing and distribution.  If it means something to the record companies  I am sure they can come up with the fee to pay the digital distributor.  There seems to be no reason to hold back on publishing the older works.

At least none that I can come up with.

Is there a reason to maintain these extended periods when the company is doing nothing to benefit from the work?

The switch to digital has impacted the whole music ecosystem from record companies to radio stations to record stores to promotion to bands to how everything gets packaged.

“Enabling the distribution rights to revert back to the artists would enable them to experiment with promotion and distribution,” says Paul, adding:

“The record companies, by their inaction on certain works, should relinquish their right over those works and let the artists who created those works benefit.”

He promises to post an article on the Backbone Networks blog about how “costs have transitioned dramatically”.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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November, 2009

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p2pnet news view Politics | Games:- Open warfare has broken out between China’s ministry of culture (MOC) and the general administration of press and publications (GAPP).

The two are currently washing their dirty linen in public. And it’s all over a game.

But not just any game.

“The firefight broke out after GAPP decided Monday night to suspend its approval of the World of WarCraft online game,” says China Daily, from whence came the pic.

WoW  has more than a million players on the Chinese mainland, says the story, going on, “In effect, the GAPP decision ran against a State Council circular issued last July that declared the MOC was in charge of regulating the multi-billion dollar online gaming industry.”

GAPP  used to be in charge, but the MOC insists online games are within its portfolio.

Now the former has ordered NetEase.com, which holds with World of WarCraft license in China, not to charge users, says he story, continuing:

“GAPP has also told the company to power off its servers and refuse to accept new account registratio  license to run ns.”

Emergency press briefing

GAPP is responsible for reviewing and approving “publications” and the department contends that online games are a form of “online publication,” says China Daily, stating »»»

The MOC called an emergency press briefing yesterday afternoon in Beijing to respond to GAPP’s decision to suspend approval on the popular online game.

Li Xiong, head of the MOC’s department of cultural markets, insisted the ministry had the sole right to regulate online games.

GAPP allowed NetEase to begin testing World of WarCraft on July 30 on the condition that it didn’t charge gamers and didn’t allow the registration of new accounts, says the story, “But NetEase allegedly began to break those conditions on Sept 19.”

GAPP responded oby saying it’d pulled approval of the game.

‘WoW fans vented their anger … ‘

WoW was released in 2005.

Chinese online games operator NetEase.com won the battle waged against the former cntroller, The9, for possession of Blizzard’s WoW, p2pnet reported.

It was subsequently suspended while the companies and government departments finished re-registration, and while it, “received new official approvals from the Ministry of Culture and GAPP,” said Peoples’ Daily.

Anxious gamers who’d been missing WoW  were expected to gather the opening of Chinajoy, an online game carnival in Shanghai, “to demand the game be made available again,” it said, adding:

“WoW fans vented their anger by logging on to servers belonging to Netease on July 11. After 5,000 signed on at the same time, they succeeded in paralyzing seven servers.”

Players also left nearly 3,000 complaints on the official website of China Consumers’ Association, and some players said they planned to sue.

WoW is serious.

Stay tuned.

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China Daily – Battle breaks out over online game WoW, November 4, 2009
p2pnet – NetEase triumphs in WoW battle, April 18, 2009
Peoples’ Daily – Battle set to end for WoW fans, July, 2009

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p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- The current round of ACTA negotiations wrap up later today in Seoul, Korea.  Having spent the first day focused on the now-leaked Internet provisions and the second day on the leaked criminal provisions, negotiators will spend this morning discussing whether they should make the draft treaty public.

Many countries continue to face pressure on the transparency issue, with KEI posting a public letter to U.S. President Barack Obama this week on the issue. Past indications are that there is a split – some countries favour making the draft available immediately, while others prefer ongoing secrecy until the treaty is completed.  Compromise positions apparently include allowing individual countries to make available text for which they are responsible.

At this stage, even ACTA supporters should be supportive of greater transparency.

First, everything seems to leak anyways, so the substance of the treaty is already broadly known.  Of course, there are specifics that have been shielded from public view, but there is enough out there to have generated an enormous backlash.

Second, ACTA is quickly becoming so broadly discredited that it will be nearly impossible to garner public support for the treaty. “The secret copyright treaty” is hardly a selling feature for a treaty that may be dead-on-arrival in the minds of citizens around the world.

Third, it is time for countries to make transparency a condition of participation.

I have my doubts about the treaty as a whole — the recent Internet leaks should make it a non-starter from a Canadian perspective — but even if the substance is put to the side, governments should not be supporting secretive copyright talks.

The talks will end at 12:30 (Seoul time) with the release of a joint statement describing who participated along with a generic statement indicating discussions focused on Internet enforcement, criminal provisions, and transparency matters.

It will conclude by indicating that the next round will be hosted by Mexico (most likely) in early 2010.

But on a day devoted to secret talks on transparency, governments should drop the diplomatic language and be prepared to open up or get out.

Michael Geist – Michael Geist’s Blog
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist @ uottawa dot ca]

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November, 2009

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p2pnet news view | Products:- According All Things Digital, everything is copacetic with Skype co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis and a “wide range of prominent Silicon Valley players”.

Or if it isn’t now, it soon will be — and possibly “around the time the markets open tomorrow,” says the story.

A settlement “between a consortium of private equity investors, who successfully bid for Skype in September, and the original founders of Skype, who have filed several lawsuits in an effort to scuttle the consortium’s $1.9 billion deal to buy a majority of Skype from eBay,” was on the verge f being agreed, p2pnet posted yesterday, quoting the New York Times.

The deal would “restructure the group that is buying Skype,” it said, aso noting, “Index Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm whose partner, Michelangelo Volpi, was at the center of litigation over the Skype sale, is most likely withdrawing from the deal”.

All Things Digital has sources sayng, “lawyers are apparently putting the finishing touches on the paperwork and have signature papers completed by both sides to be able to wrap it up quickly.”

So, “while nothing is ever over until it is over, it looks like it is over,” and, “Sources also said that as part of the deal to end the legal madness, Zennström and Friis will get 10 percent of Skype back for rights to key software technology they control, an option to pay $83 million for another three percent of the Internet telephony service and two seats on the 23-member board.”

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All Things Digital – I Love the Smell of Settlement in the Morning: Skype Founders Set to Get 10 Percent, Option to Buy Three Percent More and Two Board Seats, November 4, 2009
p2pnet – Zennstrom and Friis: Skype, the sequel, November 4, 2009
New York Times – End to a Fight Over Skype May Be Near, November 3, 2009

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p2pnet news view P2P | TV:- “I am, I feel, often a couple of steps behind mass culture,” says Jenna McWilliams, an educational researcher for project new media literacies and a Guardian online columnist.

She says it on her sleeping alone and starting out early blog where she also says, “I studied creative writing and published some poems. Then I decided to get all up in education’s grill.”

But she’s still writing, thankfully.

“Actually,” she goes on, still talking about  her  failure to be in front of the mass culture curve,  instead of behind it, “this appears to be true only about a subgroup of TV shows that we might label THE MOST AWESOME TV SHOWS EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.”

Among the TV shows she “got around to watching after they’d finished their first time around” were Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly / Serenity, Jericho, Battlestar Galactica, she says .

Currently, Jenna is five episodes into the first Dr Who season and, “I’m head over heels. (the special effects! the character development! the joy with which Rose and the Doctor thrust themselves toward adventure! those radiant, radiant smiles!).”

“But enough about me,” she says, going on, Let’s talk about Hulu »»»

More specifically, let’s talk about the cheap and free media-streaming services that offer a kind of on-demand programming experience–movies, TV shows, digital shorts–to anyone with a computer and a moderately reliable internet connection.

Hulu, a joint venture funded by NBC and Fox, is the second most popular video viewing site on the web. (YouTube was tops, but then again it’s hard to beat the king.) It’s not hard to figure out why. Hulu features a deep vault of new shows and older classics, and it offers links to streams of shows not hosted on Hulu. (Because it’s affiliated with its parent networks, the Hulu-hosted offerings stick mainly to those owned by NBC, Fox and Hulu-affiliated networks.)

I still watch a few shows on TV so I can have that old-time “community of fans, in this together” experience (SAMCRO FTW), and I subscribe to Netflix, through which I receive about 2 DVDs a month and watch up to a dozen shows and movies online. But the rest — the rest comes for free, mainly through Hulu and other franchise-sponsored media sites.

Which is why I was so sad to hear that Hulu is considering a switch to a paid format for at least some of its content, at least according to News Corp. Deputy Chairman Chase Carey (News Corp. is a part-owner of Hulu). Here’s what he said recently about the struggles of making content available for free online:

I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value. Hulu concurs with that. It needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.

Hulu does have a revenue stream in the form of ads, and back in June the big news was that for the first time, it cost more to run a commercial during the Hulu version of The Simpsons than to air one on TV. Presumably, then, this could be a functional business model: On-air advertising + Hulu advertising = the cost of TV broadcast + streaming the show on Hulu.

Either it’s not enough revenue, or it’s not enough revenue to pay for the hulking television industry whose very structure willfully ignores that the 3-party entertainment system (ABC, CBS, NBC) is decades behind us, never to return.

The manager of a laundromat near my house has posted a sign informing customers something to the effect that “heating & electricity costs went up by $60,000 last year. We have to pass that cost on to our customers.” I wonder if the 17th Street Coin Laundry has tried cutting its own costs, as well: installing energy-efficient dryers, insulating doors and windows, sealing up the leaky washing machines. (Or maybe they’re trying to save money through the marked lack of laundry baskets, chairs, and bike racks.) Since there’s a rececssion on, though, it’s likely that long-term fixes have been shunned in favor of the immediate payoff of passing costs on to the customer.

I wonder if the same is true of the entertainment industry. Couple the recession with the tension over how to leverage new, cheaper technologies for mass circulation of media, and what you get is a morass so profound it’ll take years to dig out. We made TV content available almost for free once before, during the soft spot when TVs got so cheap that almost every American household had one and cable hadn’t yet taken hold. Doing that again will take time, money, and a commitment to free that Big Media hasn’t demonstrated.

I have previously written about the difference between “news” and “the news,” and have argued that making news (if not the news) available to everyone for free is an undergirding principle of a democratic society founded on the tenets of free speech and a free press. There is no similar right to entertainment, but it’s not a stretch to argue that making media content freely available to all citizens can be democratizing in ways that free news alone cannot achieve. Especially in an increasingly participatory culture, where civic engagement is as likely to focus on electoral politics as on the politics of entertainment, corporate control, and popular culture, more access to more content can mean more democracy.

But making this happen requires a commitment to sustainable economic models and revenue streams. And the work of establishing these appears to be out of the purview of many media types. Indeed, many — including Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes — are pursuing another approach: Offering flat-rate subscriptions to TV content across multiple media platforms. Presumably, a subscriber to this “TV Everywhere” program would have access to ‘premium’ Hulu material in addition to more traditional cable content.

I wonder if newspapers are getting on board with this. It seems likely that the bundling system we’re seeing in cable subscriptions might be a palatable model for news sites, which can make premium content accessible to subscribers on some sort of graduated system. A $29.95 monthly fee might, for example, get you basic cable, HBO, Hulu and the Washington Post. They might even offer a discount for the first year, with an option to renew!

“We stand together, poised at the edge,” says Jenna, adding:

” We can, together, walk the path toward greatness by embracing the free-access, free-content, free-communication model of the internet, and by devising alternate revenue strategies that pass the costs of such a model on to corporations and advertisers; or we can take the darker path, the one bordered by pay walls, peppered with the stones of micropayments, and clouded over by limited-access news sites.

“For a short while, the paths will run nearly parallel, so close that it will seem as if they’re practically the same; but eventually the paths will diverge too much and there will be no turning back.”

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

sleeping alone and starting out early – I worry that the internet will kill everything I love, November 3, 2009

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