A site called Flickr.com is where people go to store and organize and share their pictures. Wherever possible a business model is being constructed to help every person organize their personal information and get needed information more easily. Information is only another broad and non-descriptive name for content or programming.
When Viacom sued You Tube recently for $1billion dollars for allowing their content to be used in that venue, it began a fight that we tend to see as one business protecting its turf against another. These seem like very common issues of who owns what and who can use what and more and more they are about use of content on the internet but they demonstrate aspects of consumer behavior that are not to be too simply quantified. While it sounds very sensible that if Viacom's Comedy Central invested to create the programming then they should be able to control it, consider the longer term trending perspective of these circumstances.
The smaller details of my prognostication in what follows may be missing something but, it follows closely the general position regarding the evolution of media stated here several times already. Ignore the big picture social forces at your own risk.
link for previous posts on this topic: http://roottrend.typepad.com/the_root_trend/trends_in_information_and_technology/index.html
What appears to be the trickier aspect of the subject is how control of content has been lost by content producers at this stage of the information sharing evolution. Initial reactions to some of this unauthorized use was toleration as some saw it as a form of user created promotion. As unintended use grew it soon was seen as uncontrollable, detrimental (equated to piracy),and the lawyers were unleashed. (consider this social reaction just one possible expression of the developing secular social mood)
The argument presented to us by these content producers is 'why would anyone/enterprise invest to build quality content if it cannot be protected from thievery.' "As if" we are suppose to accept their lack of control as understandable and not in their realm of responsibility. (Think, why did property owners begin to universally put up fences over time?) This weakness points to just one more reason why I believe we will soon see a distinct division made between commercial media entities that create content and those that distribute and manage content use. This would be the next step of media consolidation after each old media enterprise was broken in two. This fundamental change in the old media business model is the primary change directly ahead(in the secular trend)...the rest here is reasonable guess work based in large part upon how the developing social mood will affect perceptions and thoughts regarding new media business enterprise.
aside < This secular perspective is only possible by stepping far back to aggregate events in what is known as 'large degrees of trend'. The very long term trending we are seeing in the making and using of media is demonstrating how this one trend is paralleling social mood social mood at a degree of trend that is very long term and as such it reflects qualities that we are likely to see more of in other social trending as time passes. (This distinction is one of the main intentions of The Root Trend.) >
Making this business enterprise adjustment (changing the fundamental old media business model) will do two things: First, it will update how content of all kinds is valued in a manner that is relevant with today's "free-er market" for information. This is likely to cause very large adjustments in the (secular) short term but if content is somehow valued in increments for individual use based upon new market conditions, there are the same growth opportunities going forward, only sellers of media content opportunities will tally things differently in a world of "per-use media" sales. Second, keep in mind that a truly free market will find an equilibrium for pricing content use that will probably be very dissimilar to today's requiring greater efficiency in distribution (or media sales) business models. This potential will likely be best exploited by hungry new business models designed to exploit as many of the new media delivery formats (modalities) as possible. This will likely mean adapting to new and more efficient electronic market places for effective distribution of varied "content opportunities" based on either time constraints or modality. No matter how the fine points of content creation and distribution get worked out, it will be incumbent upon either the distributor (or creator) of the content to develop technology to encode the content so it will be detectable when used illegally on sites like You Tube; thereby offering the host a way to take action. Encoding technology exists and can be monitored automatically by host sites and therefore protection ensured to a better extent.
The on line environment effectively freed access to the media market from complete FCC control but it does not mean: 'why bother footing the expense to create good programming if you cannot control it.' It does however mean that the basic business model created and accepted since FCC licensing was first established has persisted in how it affects our perceptions of programming's fair value to users and sponsors. The 'ten year flood effect' the internet is having upon this established sense of order is forcing a secular change in how we value things (see the blog category) (in this case: information, content, and programming).
This is exactly where an important link to social mood resides: Take the enormous social energy that innovated technology over many decades until it created a massive social tipping point so that we suddenly are now using it everyday (like it always existed...what did people do before email?)
If this social energy is to be turned toward creating the most efficient societal (tool)use, then overtime, some old constructions or conventions will be torn down to make room for the new economy of the information age. The FCC legacied 'old media business model' is one of them.
I think of this process as 'social consolidation' which simply borrows a term from a financial chartists perspective on a period of sideways or downward correction in a market's activity. In the case of media use and information use, the sideways or down part of the market action has nothing to do with adoption & use of streaming or digital media, and everything to do with monetizing investments made in content production proportionally to the increased overall use. In the end, an efficient and free-er market will determine the correct post-FCC valuation of content on a per-reach basis (one idea anyway) in the media world. As this process unfolds there will likely be a broad based re-evaluation of all kinds of content, not just TV, radio, and music as these get most of the press so far. This point is worthy of an entirely separate discussion and will in itself have far reaching implications.
One last thought: If you ever had a hobby that used equipment or technology that went through regular updating, then you may have witnessed this same endgame playing out in that smaller environment. Whenever technology gets ahead of people in a specific market or social grouping, there will inevitably be those who's use of it will be detrimental and or completely novel...even seemingly foolish. In this case, stolen or misused content is not easily figured out right now....but that is only right now. People always catch up with technology. In the meantime, try not to be one of the unlucky ones who gets injured somehow by the law of unintended consequences.
The You Tube suits are telling us that content is not being protected and right now the producers want us to believe (in this moment anyway) it is not their responsibility to protect their work. It is telling us that the value proposition for content itself (of all kinds) needs to be renegotiated into a format that media enterprises use to build the next generation business model. And finally, it is telling us that all target market's demands for choice in the media sphere is being heard better now and especially since the FCC began managing the market for media distribution decades ago. When looking at important business issues involving changes in behavior, the root trend shows us how social mood is conveyed best by free markets but is a force that will be expressed no matter what obstacles are put in its way. This is not a political position on government regulation of markets. It is one of many pragmatic observations that matter to marketers(especially right now).
I found the You Tube article on the Houston Chronical website but it is credited to Bloomberg. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4869023.html
YouTube suit gains backers
Sports leagues join action against video postings
Bloomberg News
Two French sports organizations and a music publisher are backing England's top-tier soccer league in a lawsuit against Google's YouTube unit over unauthorized postings of Internet videos.
Federation Francaise de Tennis, the Ligue de Football Professionel soccer group and Cherry Lane Music Publishing Co., which owns rights to music catalogs for Elvis Presley and Quincy Jones, said in a statement Wednesday they "join and strongly support" the copyright-infringement claims against YouTube and Google.
Last month, England's Football Association Premier League and another independent music publisher, Bourne Co., sued YouTube and Google in federal court in New York. They asked to represent any copyright owner whose work is posted without permission on YouTube, which Google acquired last year for nearly $1.7 billion.
The French sports groups and Cherry Lane Music aren't formally named as plaintiffs. Instead, they have said they want to be included in a class of copyright owners and are willing to participate if needed, said lawyer Louis Solomon, who sued Google and YouTube on behalf of the Premier League and Bourne.
"We will figure out what role they will be playing in the litigation," Solomon said. "They're very serious players in their particular space, and they wanted to have a role."
The case is one of several legal challenges to the video-sharing site.
In March, Viacom, owner of MTV Networks and Comedy Central, sued YouTube and Google demanding $1 billion in compensation for more than 160,000 clips of shows it says were posted without permission.
Google has said it removes copyrighted works when it receives complaints and isn't liable for the actions of users.
Additional reading link suggestion: To see what I have discussed here regarding business models in the current light, here's an excellent perspective of mobile media in the throes of its development and adoption. http://blog.futurelab.net/2007/06/advertising_age_digital_video.html
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