update 5 09 10:
Since publishing this post the argument has been shown to me to already have much wider social application than I anticipated and is already developed in the realm of software patents and business process patents. One of the core qualities of significant social trends are how some core value is reflected upon in a variety of manifestations across a society. In this case it is about shared attitudes toward ownership of ideas as it related to IP, patents, and copyrights. Interestingly, these seemingly separate events are all part of one evolving social trend that can be monitored as such. Established interests in the business realm use an ever more complicated legal process to obfuscate the core public need: ever increasing utilization of good ideas to produce incremental innovation. The problem is how ideas have become protected like patents on machines and drugs once were. The age of digital innovation is ground zero for all these concerns and is subject the the era of Choice. The greater social good in the era of Choice is about being more connected using high quality ideas and whether or not ideas can be owned the same way a unique manufacture process has been protected by patents. So the perishability of content is about the ownership of ideas in the same way that we eventually decided that ranch owners ultimately were forced to erect fences to protect grazing for their cattle. This is not esoteric if you produce daily news content in any modality, if you write software, and these day if you use math to produce a business process. The following video link is 28 minutes and shines a bright light on how individual interests are using our legal system to protect ideas that cost prevent from becoming more efficient in order to capture value for a single enterprise. From a very broad social standpoint, businesses are tools created by people to deliver value to markets of people. That is their role and responsibility. Over time the social fundamentals have evolved so that our laws are working harder for business interests that for the markets they serve. That is the current state of this trending process.
If space allowed (it does not) I could offer an esoteric discussion of how different portions of large social trends are seen to have phases that can be identified and how this phase of this particular trend is clearly nearing social exhaustion and typically this produces circumstances where the fundamental issues are out of balance with the greater public good. This is exactly why I am writing about this topic here. Viacom v. Google (You Tube) is a side show to this larger social trending process.
Even if you have no interest in the legal process surrounding tech issues, this video will offer insight to how this late stage trending is choking value off from the larger social need that the era of Choice is endeavoring to revive. Large and important social trends have at their core very simple social values that can be seen to swing from one polar extreme to the other. This will take a while (as in several years more at least) but the value in identifying this now is precisely because social values sometimes change much more quickly than at other times. We are approaching one of those periods now. Expect change because it is needed and the social motivation to produce that change is based on need and noting less (like politics etc). This trending issue is a reflection of one important aspect of social need that surrounds the industrial revolution of media.
Original publish date: 4 08 10
Viacom's lawsuit of Google's You Tube over copyright protection issues is a major social issue but so far most people see it only as one business fighting another business in court, so they dismiss it.
That's really too bad.
The implications of any decisive action will affect all Americans, and especially the youngest & brightest from focusing on what really matters most...incremental innovation.
Even though the long term outlook is more predictable (generationally), the shorter iterations will change how content companies do business and how Americans, ultimately, make progress in these challenging times. How we value things (our shared values related to information) is changing and more than ever the spotlight is being cast upon the behavior of newly competitive enterprises and the generational divide. This case matters to everyone because we are redrawing the official boundaries of acceptable behavior (as reflected by actual changing behavior). It is not everyday we re-write (or redefine) a social contract. It is worth a little reflection that goes beyond the demands of the quarterly earnings of over-leveraged companies.
If this introduction sounds like editorial, I encourage you to read through to the end.
Depending upon which side of this legal case is represented in any article you read, you may get the feeling it is unreasonable for very different reasons. What seems to be missed is just how important this discussion is to our collective future. Important how? Business-wise, politically as a capitalist democracy, and in terms of the perception of fairness by free people around the world. Information and ideas move people to act. The freer the flow of information the more efficient this system will function in producing better quality solutions to problems small and large. Of course it is easy to think about the mundane uses of media or entertainment but, the breadth and diversity of media in our lives (as Americans) makes it a primary tool that is responsible (in part) for making freedom work as effectively as it has for 234 years.
There is one or more fringe groups out there that often lead using the positioning statement "information wants to be free" and often, those groups are seen as socialists or worse:enemies of the capitalist system, (the right to own a copyright, and therefore: the incentive to produce).
America has reached a digital crossroad and it has little or nothing to do with socialism. It has to do with laws surrounding ownership of ideas in the digital age. Our laws need to evolve and make many more exacting distinctions. It has to do with who owns the responsibility for protecting these ideas...the owners of the ideas (who profit from them) or the people and businesses that see these ideas wander past their space digitally, with or without proper attribution? Theft will always be theft as it is built into the existing social contracts but with the volume of content passed around these days how are we to distinguish exactly what is fair? Are we really to rely on laws that use backward looking values on a new era and a digital universe? First, I am sure aspects of this answer will be based on technology and that the owners of the IP are reasonably expected to police use of their own creations but as this legal case shows us, business needs to be told this by a judge instead of accepting the responsibility for change upon themselves. Seeing this happen will require a shift in the social contract first, and that must begin by the courts acknowledging how we value things (collectively) has changed and is still changing now. Second: ideas, sounds, and digital visuals need to be distinguished. How are each protected? Distinctions need to be made in ways that were not necessary before. The simplistic system that has existed up until now cannot go forward because conflicts like this will become more frequent and potentially clog our already taxed judicial system. Basic economics tells us that when prices are set too high relative to a market's perceived value, the incentive to steal naturally increases. Social contracts can take many forms, not just as laws. Eventually, how we values things comes into balance and enterprises adjust. This is what is only beginning now and it will take a long time.
Another part of this problem we are now facing down is even more nuanced: How long should different kinds of copyrights last and what rules should we support that balance both the incentive to share and the social utility of ideas in the digital environment? Social contracts change with every generation. It never happens quickly but, it does happen every time. Keeping with the theme, here, that media is a primary social tool (built into our founding agreement), then these ideas will find the social impetus to be tested. They are already being tested. Courts need to acknowledge this social reality. The older and younger generations will work them out in time.
In previous posts I compared IP (intellectual property) to cattle on the old west before fences were necessitated. Ultimately the owners of large land tracks built the expensive fences in order to protect their own investment. Physical fences allowed owners to assert their rights in courts more effectively to stop thieves and free grazing of cattle others owned. There are at least a few movies on that very tumultuous time on our history. The key point is how, back then, each side was resolute and felt justified. Ultimately, one of the property owners won out over the other because it was perceived to be in the larger social good. Essentially, protecting physical private property, back then, was in the interest of a young nation in order to spur incremental settlement and growth. That is what we valued most back then. Now however, the social need is different and, so are the times.
The old media companies of the US were protected for many decades by significant barriers to entry in their markets. Those barriers are either gone now or are nearly so. The operating environment of these companies allowed a passive quality to develop among competitors and many enterprises are not ready for this era of Choice and its wild (competitive) qualities. Digital technology has been adopted by the masses and you/they cannot blame it on anyone ( or businesses like search) because it is a very large group (societal) process. Owners must take active steps to protect their own IP.
This idea has been discussed here several times. Let's take it to a new level and introduce an idea worth getting to know better: Perishability
How much is a news story worth in today's paper? How much is it worth the day after tomorrow? Next week? Now, apply these same distinctions to all kinds of content.(not an easy task but it needs to begin happening)
Patents last a prescribed amount of time and then promptly become public domain. Images and sound, up till now have been perpetually protected. The realm of entertainment seems to justify this thinking but in the realm of ideas, does this hold us back collectively? If so, how do we make better distinctions based on having a digital environment?
Maybe the way we go at this idea is that when ideas are shared publicly (digitally) with the intent of profiting from them, then at that point, since the digital code is out there already, the shelf life clock begins ticking. There are so many seeming variations but one thing is becoming clear. Ideas are valuable. Of course, we knew this back around the very first campfire where hunting and gathering stories were exchanged after each day. IP needs to be better defined and we need to consider adding the dynamic of perishability to the newly different kinds of IP protection that we socially sanction.
I am no lawyer. I have no idea if lawyers think we are headed this way right now. What is clear is how laws and social contracts follow human shared values and those values change as social mood changes. This giant period of social correction we entered a decade ago will continue developing for another decade or two, or three, or maybe more. In this same period of social correction we will see a dominant generation peak and begin receding from influence. Millennial kids and young adults are adopting technology in ways and with intentions that Boomers could only imagine. There is no good or bad attached to either perspective. They are just different. This is always a component of long term change and we are changing as a nation a lot right now.
News and the ideas that come along with news are a key ingredient to what has propelled our nation in so many ways. Technology has advanced the use of shared ideas exponentially since search came to our homes and offices. Search is not guilty of not protecting other's cattle (ideas or property). If they are then we are all guilty....and we cannot all be wrong. Times are changing and have been for well over a decade. The tools that serve us, (read as businesses) need to upgrade and keep up with us.
Perishability needs to be explored in relation to the social contract about content and idea sharing. I have no agenda toward this end. It merely seems logical for us to (eventually) consider specific distinctions with regard to content, and how it is shared-monetized-moves around and if it makes sense to begin using shelf dates that apply to specific categories of content. If technology is demonstrating anything clearly in the digital wilderness, it is how few tools remain completely effective for long. Instead of seeing the solution as command and control of behavior of the masses, the better way will be to seek social agreement. The social contracts in place now, as they relate to content use, are inadequate to effectively build consensus. Adding the notion of variable perishability to different kinds of content is the kind of idea that works with the momentum we are witnessing in the growth of digital content utilization. If content companies focused more on developing better use metrics to help monetize content, then resources might be more effectively deployed as they work to navigate this period of substantial change. Standing still and looking back is not an option.
If thought out and discussed openly, the two sides will come to see what really matters most.
Progress.
end note: as I mentioned above....I do not have a detailed understanding of the laws and am not attempting to reflect on legal issues. The intent here is to acknowledge how we are changing as a large societal group of consumers of content....all kinds of content(not just entertainment). My opinion is based on a forecast for substantial social change that is already happening and eventually we will make many more exacting distinctions of how copyrights apply to different kinds of content. Our adoption of technology is causing so many changes so quickly that we require the discourse and acknowledgment of these factors. This discourse will guide enterprises on where opportunity exists. Sometimes, during periods of exceptional change we require a few attempts at change that we can all agree upon and are in alignment with our founding agreement (the US Constitution).
Maybe the main point of the perish-ability discussion, for now, is how laws are a lagging indication of changes in how we value things (all kinds of things and ideas). Just as we ought to take care of allowing others the rights associated with different kinds of private property, we also ought to take care when calling others thieves. Better legal distinctions towards content seem like an overdue and logical first step.
This will be a good beginning...
This view is based upon a forecast using the idea of social mood and generational turnover and how two macro social dynamics are shaping this discussion as we move forward as a nation. Broad copyright laws worked fine in an era of Xerox machines but in a digital universe they are woefully inadequate. If history is any guide, fences will be built first to protect content, and then over time, these new IP distinctions will become an obvious need as enterprises work to incentivize and encourage their markets.
Further reading:
Visual Artist Sue Google over copyright issues (Google Books) CNN 4 10
Comments