[pwalker8]

Today's WSJ has a review of Jonathan Taplin's Move Fast and Break Things. The review is "Whose Song Is It, Anyway?" According to the review, the book looks at how the platform companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Google have cashed in on content provided by others, while little of that money goes back to the content providers. While the book focuses on music (the author is a well known music producer), it also delves into ebooks and video. According to the review, the book advocates a change in the safe harbor clause of the DMCA and other changes to things such as fair use.

Based on the review, I probably won't buy the book. However, the main thing that I took away from the review is that right now, the digital media battle is divided into three main groups - content providers, platform providers and consumers - each with very different priorities. Both content providers and platform companies have very deep pockets and know how to play the game to the laws changed in their favor. I suspect that the consumer will once again be on the outside looking in.