MediaFuturist

Friction is Fiction: the Future of Media & Business (my presentation at Next10 Berlin)

Next10 was  nice event; lot's of good conversations there. In the morning (May 11, 2010), I gave a presentation on the topic of my last book, "Friction is Fiction". You can download the book's PDF via Lulu (for $3.99) or buy the newly updated black & white dead tree version for a smashing $19.99), and if you really are adverse to spending anything you can ask me for a free, low-res version of the book (via Twitter is best). Friction is Fiction explains how before the Internet (and mobile) it was possible to generate revenues by essentially forcing the users to pay, i.e. via scarcity, distribution hurdles, dominance. This no longer works (at least, in most cases) - Liquidity is what is needed, Trust replaces Control and the winners are lubricating the digital economy.  Check out this slideshow - and please share it widely!

Friction is Fiction: The Future of Business & Media (Next10)

View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.

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EU Telecom Commissioner Reding: "Failed business model is causing online piracy"

Image by gleonhard via Flickr

EUobserver / Brussels claims failed business model is causing online piracy. Read & smile:

 "It is in this new generation that there is real growth potential for Europe," says Ms Reding, describing the age group as "digital natives." The commission believes that as these individuals grow older and their purchasing power increases, greater internet use has the potential to create around one million jobs in Europe and generate €850 billion in economic activity. The claim is supported by a recent World Bank study that estimates every 10 percent of additional broadband penetration yields 1.3 percent in economic growth"

Nice to hear that.

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Across Irish Sea: two bold tactics against music piracy, Gerd comments: Compensation not Control! (CS Monitor)

Image by gleonhard via Flickr

A god read: Across Irish Sea: two bold tactics against music piracy | csmonitor.com.
This is a good review of the Isle of Man plans to make music sharing on the Internet legal. I was asked to comment on this; here are some excerpts: 

“The logic is quite straightforward: You find a way of creating a payment within the network,” says Gerd Leonhard, a media futurist and author...Although a similar idea failed in France in 2006 amid a fierce lobbying effort by the recording industry, Mr. Leonhard has long argued that if the recording industry licensed Internet networks with a flatrate for streaming and downloading music, then advertising and other subsidies would be able to cover the entire CD business. He doesn’t even think the Isle of Man’s tax is necessary.

“The payment of about €1 [$1.28] per week, which we have been debating in Europe as a flat rate, is entirely possible to raise through the ecosystem. The music won’t be free, but it will feel like free,” he says, in an interview from Austria. Business models like Leonhard’s are becoming more feasible as concert tours, merchandise, and endorsements become more lucrative than recordings. “When Prince gives away his CD away with a British Sunday newspaper, he knows that he will be guaranteed three sold-out shows. That is worth more to him than the recording,” Leonhard says...."

Author and futurist Leonhard says the recording industry is fighting an uphill battle: “The tactic of criminalizing users hasn’t produced any money. The industry needs to look for compensation, not control.”

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Copyright extension is the enemy of innovation -Times Online

This open letter is a very hard-hitting and on-the-money response to the planned extension of copyright terms: Copyright extension is the enemy of innovation -Times Online.

"The simple truth is that copyright extension benefits most those who already hold rights. It benefits incumbent holders of major back-catalogues, be they record companies, ageing rock stars or, increasingly, artists’ estates. It does nothing for innovation and creativity. The proposed Term Extension Directive undermines the credibility of the copyright system. It will further alienate a younger generation that, justifiably, fails to see a principled basis. Many of us sympathise with the financial difficulties that aspiring performers face. However, measures to benefit performers would look rather different. They would target unreasonably exploitative contracts during the existing term, and evaluate remuneration during the performer’s lifetime, not 95 years..."

Read my various comments comments on Copyright 2.0 here

EU musicians oppose Europe-wide online licensing (controling your works)

EU musicians oppose Europe-wide online licensing - Yahoo! News.

"On a fundamental scale, it's a human right that someone who writes a piece of work should have control of it," Gibb said in a statement, adding that a change could discourage newer songwriters from producing tomorrow's hits"

True enough - that would be nice. If it was still feasible. If this was still a disconnected and / or centrally controlled world. If permission-denied would actually mean it's not possible. If lack of license means no use. If refusal means maintaining control. If value is defined by having control.

The thing is, Berry: we don't live in this world anymore. Once we release something it's the users fka consumers that control it's use - and we urgently need to find a way of making what they already do legal. This illusion of total control is not going to generate benefits for creators and rights-holders.

My final comment

China Internet control unacceptable - European Commissioner - Forbes.com

Link: China Internet control unacceptable - European Commissioner - Forbes.com.

"We say for instance to the Chinese, very clearly so, that their blocking of certain Internet content is absolutely unacceptable,' said Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media...'So Europe speaks up in this sense, and is fighting for the freedom of speech and the freedom to receive the news,' she said."