{"id":1734,"date":"2011-05-21T13:26:55","date_gmt":"2011-05-21T12:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/?p=1734"},"modified":"2011-05-21T13:26:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-21T12:26:55","slug":"monetization-is-key-to-protecting-internet-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/21\/monetization-is-key-to-protecting-internet-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Monetization is key to protecting Internet freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The long-term freedom of the Internet may depend, in part, on convincing the big players of the content industry to modernize their business models.<\/p>\n<p>Motivated by &#8220;protecting&#8221; the content industry, the U.S. Congress is discussing <a href=\"http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-13578_3-20062419-38.html\">proposed legislation<\/a> that could be used to seize domain names and force websites (even search engines) to remove links.<\/p>\n<p>Congress doesn&#8217;t yet understand that there are already safe and effective ways to counter piracy &#8212; which don&#8217;t threaten Internet freedom. &#8220;Piracy happens not because it is cheaper, but because it is more convenient,&#8221; as <a href=\"http:\/\/33bits.org\/2011\/05\/19\/fighting-protect-ip-congresswoman-lofgren\/\">Arvind Narayanan reports, musing on a conversation with Congresswoman Lofgren<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>What the Congresswoman was saying was this:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The only way to convince Washington to drop this issue for good is to show that artists and musicians can get paid on the Internet.<\/li>\n<li>Currently they are not seeing any evidence of this. The Congresswoman believes that new technology needs to be developed to let artists get paid. <em>I believe she is entirely wrong about this; see below.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>The arguments that have been raised by tech companies and civil liberties groups in Washington all center around free speech; there is nothing wrong with that but it is not a viable strategy in the long run because the issue is going to keep coming back.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Arvind&#8217;s response is that the technology needed is already here. That&#8217;s old news to technologists, but the technology sector needs to educate Congress, who may not have the time and skills to get this information by themselves.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The dinosaurs of the content industries need to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20101220\/00032812332\/piracy-isnt-problem-bad-business-model-is-problem.shtml\">adapt their business models<\/a>. Piracy is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20110204\/23401312975\/japanese-government-study-shows-anime-piracy-could-boosts-sales.shtml\"><em>not<\/em> correlated<\/a> with a decrease in sales. Piracy happens not because it is cheaper, but because it is <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telecomcircle.com\/2010\/02\/digital-music\/\">more convenient<\/a><\/em>. Businesses need to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20090219\/1124433835.shtml\"><em>compete<\/em> with piracy<\/a> rather than trying to outlaw it. Artists who\u2019ve understood this are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/radiohead\/40444\">already<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/news\/2011\/04\/competing-with-free-anime-site-treats-piracy-as-a-market-failure.ars\">thriving<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The long-term freedom of the Internet may depend, in part, on convincing the big players of the content industry to modernize their business models. Motivated by &#8220;protecting&#8221; the content industry, the U.S. Congress is discussing proposed legislation that could be used to seize domain names and force websites (even search engines) to remove links. Congress [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,85,77],"tags":[82,381,383,382,325],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-future-of-publishing","category-information-ecosystem","category-intellectual-freedom","tag-business-models","tag-censorship","tag-content-industry","tag-free-speech","tag-monetization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1734"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1745,"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions\/1745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jodischneider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}