Amateurs again threaten to tip world upside down

Amateurs again threaten to tip world upside down says the International Herald Tribune

While music and film producers loudly drag illegal file sharers to court, company executives, government officials and industry lobbies are debating how to regulate the creation and distribution of digital content in an age in which distinctions between those who consume and those who create are disappearing. The rise of the amateur digital content producer - somebody who keeps a blog, mixes his own song or shoots his own video and makes it available online - is creating an almost audible buzz in an industry dominated by behemoths like Apple and Google. The amateurs, facilitated by the rapid diffusion of broadband Internet access, are innovating and setting the tone for the creation and distribution of digital content, whether music, films, television, radio, games, advertising or text. Established media companies that have already seen their business models emasculated by illegal file sharing are nervously watching the rise of the amateur content producers and distributors. These amateurs are changing the media landscape again and in some cases becoming the new entrepreneurs with the hot product that may make what is new today obsolete tomorrow.

Fred von Lohmann, the senior intellectual property lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation says

Copyright law has worked very well for a long time, but today it has gone too far with digital content and is being used to hamper innovation and to squash free expression

Copyright is really getting some close attention at the moment. As the pace of change outstrips legal frameworks and assumptions. Big media are trying to lock down the internet and digital platforms, whilst communities what freer access.

The European Commission and the UK are once again set on a collision course. Forget constitutions, euros or Maastricht. This time it's about something you care about: television, and particularly the future of TV and new media over the internet. The complex row between the UK government, the Confederation of British Industries (CBI), UK technology companies and the EC revolves around the cheerily named TV Without Frontiers directive. It's a proposed piece of European legislation intended to bring television in line with recent changes in technology.

A big battle looms

How do you define an amateur? If somebody distributes content over the Internet, does that person have to follow regular broadcast laws, or should there be special regulations for the Web? Should the government step in to shut down blogs that incite illegal behavior? What about blogs that provide a forum for people to sympathize with outlawed groups?

And the Herald suggests as do many others that

While the digital content pie is already huge, many industry specialists say that the industry is still in a start-up phase and that the government should stand back, as a lack of regulation breeds innovation in the early stages of a technology.

There are two sides to every story

Those advocating an absence of government regulation in the early stages of the digital content revolution, and limited government involvement thereafter, say that without illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing services like Napster, iTunes would probably never have been created, because music companies never would have supported legal downloads if unauthorized file sharing had not begun to chip away at their bottom line. But major content producers have made it clear they are no mood to wait.

Alex Ogilvie, vice president for business development in Europe for Warner Brothers International TV said

It's not in our interest to let our content be ripped off

Niche markets rule

Fabchannel , a five-year-old Dutch Web site, streams concerts of relatively little-known artists live over the Internet and then continues to make them available online, trying to bring in artists who get ignored by the big companies. Fabchannel makes money by allowing people to click an icon on the Web site and buy a DVD of the concert.

Further reading

telephone age thinking in an internet age

Comments

[Tom Chandler]

"Amateurs" wrest control of digital content from "professional" generators, who wish they'd all just disappear.

Meanwhile, digital "amateurs" wrest control of product brands from "professional" brand managers, who seem unaware it's happening.

What's missing? Awareness might be a good starting point – professionals who can't differentiate between two-way digital channels and traditional one-way channels. Or perhaps they simply don't recognize the implications.

How many companies (staffed by professionals) think they've covered the Internet because they have a Web site?

The problem isn't amateurs willing to empower themselves. It's "professionals" who aren't willing to do the same...

[alan moore]

Interesting thought Tom.

There is certainly a great deal of education that needs to happen.

And remember this has to be driven strategically, as the chnage is all so encompassing. Its not fair to blame it on line managers tasked to deal with the day to day. In a organisational structure built to withstand change, not enable it.

Its what we all are about.

BR

Alan

[Tom Chandler]

Thanks for the response. I work primarily with small and medium sized business - companies who might have the most deal to gain from engagement marketing and community building, but seem to know the least about it.

I freely admit to cherry picking the elements of your work that relate best to small business; so many of your examples are on the macro scale yet much of what I'm doing relates to micro markets -- small niches of hobbyists and enthusiasts.

In these instances, the "amateur" digital content generator (whether blog or niche bulletin board) can wield enormous influence. Yet - even as my wholly "amateur" personal outdoors blog pulls an average of 400 visits per day - I was told by one industry person that there's no need for corporate blogging because their agency assured them they were covering all the relevant trade magazines.

Ouch.

[alan moore]

well they can joint the dumb and dumber gang :-)

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