Media

If Control's control is absolute, why does Control need to control?

Answer: Control needs time.

Mulher and I were discussing an upcoming luncheon in La-La-Land, presented by the Beverly Hills Bar Association. They ask, "Will file-sharing kill the copyright industries?"

I think the whole issue is really very simple, that the complexity is all in the rhetoric. [Discuss]

Intellectual property is not property. The resource defined by intellectual property is not scarce. Monopoly for a limited time, for a specific purpose, is granted, which creates an artificial scarcity. Some businesses are built on that monopoly grant. Consider the meaning of the word "medium." These businesses exist not to create but to distribute stuff. Another means of distribution threatens their existing business.

The distribution method at hand elminates artificial scarcities imposed by physical media, such as paper, film — anything that requires space. The only scarcity is time: my time.

The Media are middlemen. That is all. They know it. They don't want you to know it. They can't admit it. They are middlemen for something which everyone has.

Money is made off of scarcity. Middlemen make money off of scarcity by bringing a thing from one place to another, generally speaking. But if the scarcity is artificial, and that artificiality is destroyed, then how do you make money off bringing it from one place to another? You don't. You make money off of scarcity. The scarcity is time. The scarcity is not stuff.

There are two ways to prevent the decay of this artificial scarcity:

1) New laws criminalizing existing non-criminal behavior and strict enforcement of those laws, both by police and by technology. These laws, if not able to be expressed in Acts of Congress, can be expressed solely in code.

This way leads to the dystopian future of Max Headroom.

2) Recognize that the scarcity is artificial, that the thing sold is distribution, not "content," and go about the business of distribution in the manner that the customers want.

This way leads to profit.

12:17:15 PM # Google It!
categories: Media