Rick Carnes, President of the Songwriters Guild of America, responds to Free Press over their reflexive opposition to new business models that allow creators to protect and sell their content.
In an article yesterday in the Washington Post (Monday, January 4, 2010), Free Press and other public advocacy groups called for an anti-trust probe into TV Everywhere.
For those who haven't heard, TV Everywhere is Time Warner's authentication system whereby certain premium content would be available to subscribers. In other words, you can take your home cable subscription online.
Consumers have been waiting a long time for this. Access to premium content whenever and wherever they want it has been a sort of digital Holy Grail. To date, lack of access to some premium content has routinely been cited as an excuse for the fact that the vast amount of music and movie content is illegally downloaded using P2P services. With the advent of new and exciting services like Hulu, Vevo, and now, TV Everywhere, the chance to view and listen to the very best content legally is here. No more excuses.
That is why the protests by Free Press and others against TV Everywhere are so confounding to a Songwriter like myself. These groups allege "collusion" to "keep video content behind a subscription-based pay wall."
That 'Pay-Wall' always seems to be the problem for these groups. They want it all, they want it now, and they want it for free. But I've never written a free song. Every one cost me something: a couple of years without being able to heat my house; a future hanging by a guitar string; no health insurance; no pension; writer's block; and the occasional broken heart. I always kept coming back for more because I knew that if I put the right words and music together then I could get paid enough to make it all worthwhile.
Without that 'Pay Wall' I can't make enough to afford to keep writing. No one pays for a ticket when there are no 'Pay Walls' keeping them out of the concert. Creators should not have to ask permission to innovate and earn fair compensation by selling our work.
The public advocacy groups are so concerned about anyone becoming a content 'Gatekeeper' (even with their own content!) on the internet that they are willing to limit the freedom of creators in favor of an internet full of gate crashers.
On February 8, 2005 (commenting on the Grokster decision) in an interview for CNet, Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge wrote, "Public Knowledge believes that online content stores that are easy to use, reasonably priced, permit flexible uses and have large catalogs will win consumers' hearts and pocketbooks, and prove once again that technological development is better left to the marketplace."
Five years later, TV Everywhere sounds a lot like an attempt to create that reasonably priced, flexible use, large catalog, content delivery system.
But it isn't free, so now the Public advocacy groups are against it.
Is that 'Pay Wall' the only real problem for these Groups? If not, then they need to stop giving mere lip-service to the idea that Creators need to be compensated and make some concrete, workable proposals about how that compensation system would work for those of us in the real world.
Just saying no to everything, or Everywhere TV, isn't helping to solve the problem.
In an article yesterday in the Washington Post (Monday, January 4, 2010), Free Press and other public advocacy groups called for an anti-trust probe into TV Everywhere.
For those who haven't heard, TV Everywhere is Time Warner's authentication system whereby certain premium content would be available to subscribers. In other words, you can take your home cable subscription online.
Consumers have been waiting a long time for this. Access to premium content whenever and wherever they want it has been a sort of digital Holy Grail. To date, lack of access to some premium content has routinely been cited as an excuse for the fact that the vast amount of music and movie content is illegally downloaded using P2P services. With the advent of new and exciting services like Hulu, Vevo, and now, TV Everywhere, the chance to view and listen to the very best content legally is here. No more excuses.
That is why the protests by Free Press and others against TV Everywhere are so confounding to a Songwriter like myself. These groups allege "collusion" to "keep video content behind a subscription-based pay wall."
That 'Pay-Wall' always seems to be the problem for these groups. They want it all, they want it now, and they want it for free. But I've never written a free song. Every one cost me something: a couple of years without being able to heat my house; a future hanging by a guitar string; no health insurance; no pension; writer's block; and the occasional broken heart. I always kept coming back for more because I knew that if I put the right words and music together then I could get paid enough to make it all worthwhile.
Without that 'Pay Wall' I can't make enough to afford to keep writing. No one pays for a ticket when there are no 'Pay Walls' keeping them out of the concert. Creators should not have to ask permission to innovate and earn fair compensation by selling our work.
The public advocacy groups are so concerned about anyone becoming a content 'Gatekeeper' (even with their own content!) on the internet that they are willing to limit the freedom of creators in favor of an internet full of gate crashers.
On February 8, 2005 (commenting on the Grokster decision) in an interview for CNet, Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge wrote, "Public Knowledge believes that online content stores that are easy to use, reasonably priced, permit flexible uses and have large catalogs will win consumers' hearts and pocketbooks, and prove once again that technological development is better left to the marketplace."
Five years later, TV Everywhere sounds a lot like an attempt to create that reasonably priced, flexible use, large catalog, content delivery system.
But it isn't free, so now the Public advocacy groups are against it.
Is that 'Pay Wall' the only real problem for these Groups? If not, then they need to stop giving mere lip-service to the idea that Creators need to be compensated and make some concrete, workable proposals about how that compensation system would work for those of us in the real world.
Just saying no to everything, or Everywhere TV, isn't helping to solve the problem.
Leave a comment