[p2p-research] Fwd: The iTunes Store: just a detour on the way to a world without intellectual p...

Thu Feb 4 02:00:20 CET 2010

It's becoming a trend to write this article...once again, I agree.

Ryan

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 7:28 PM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

> This strikes me as relevant to recent discussions with Ryan.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Kevin Carson <free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com>
> Date: Feb 1, 2010 11:10 PM
> Subject: [p2p-research] The iTunes Store: just a detour on the way to a
> world without intellectual p...
> To: Peer-To-Peer Research List <p2presearch at listcultures.org>
>
>
>
> Sent to you by Kevin Carson via Google Reader:
>
>
> The iTunes Store: just a detour on the way to a world without intellectual
> property<http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/rationalitate/%7E3/SqPytzV3Iqo/itunes-store-just-detour-on-way-to.html>
> via Anarchoblogs <http://anarchoblogs.org/> by Raționalitate on 2/1/10
>
> Tim Lee has an interesting analysis <http://timothyblee.com/?p=2169> of
> the shortcomings of Apple's iPad, but at the end he makes what I believe is
> a very prescient, more general point about the future of intellectual
> property and digital media:
>
> This is of a piece with the rest of Apple’s media strategy. Apple seems
> determined to replicate the 20th century business model of paying for copies
> of content in an age where those copies have a marginal cost of zero.
> Analysts often point to the strategy as a success, but I think this is a
> misreading of the last decade. The parts of the iTunes store that have had
> the most success—music and apps—are tied to devices that are strong products
> in their own right. Recall that the iPod was introduced 18 months before the
> iTunes Store, and that the iPhone had no app store for its first year. In
> contrast, the Apple TV, which is basically limited to only playing content
> purchased from the iTunes Store, has been a conspicuous failure. People
> don’t buy iPods and iPhones in order to use the iTunes store. They buy from
> the iTunes store because it’s an easy way to get stuff onto their iPods and
> iPhones.
>
> Apple is fighting against powerful and fundamental economic forces. In the
> short term, Apple’s technological and industrial design prowess can help to
> prop up dying business models. But before too long, the force of economic
> gravity will push the price of content down to its marginal cost of zero.
> And when it does, the walls of Apple’s garden will feel a lot more
> confining. If “tablets” are the future, which is far from clear, I’d rather
> wait for a device that gives me full freedom to run the applications and
> display the content of my choice.
>
>
> Even though Apple's managed to stave off some amount of piracy with the
> iTunes Store, I think this is likely to be temporary as it becomes easier
> and easier to pirate media. (Streaming music – legally through YouTube and
> MySpace pages – and movies – through illegal content hosted on sites like
> megavideo.com – have already been essentially freed, and as soon as the
> internets' pipes become thick enough that you can download quickly without
> resorting to BitTorrent, I think it's over for online movie/TV sales.)
>
> This same analysis could be applied to the Wall Street Journal – it has a
> niche now, but it may not in the future, and I doubt any company (including
> the New York Times) will be able to emulate its online strategy.
>
> My advice to content providers in it for the long haul would be: make it
> all free, find a good behavioral advertising firm, team up with a company
> like Facebook or Amazon which already has a lot of mineable data stored in
> already-established profiles, and, most importantly, hire a damn good
> lawyer, lobbyist, and PR firm.
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Ryan Lanham
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