Publishers need to die

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Although I agree that there might be an overlap problem... <<SNIP>> ...and old artists can jump on it whenever they can free themselves from their previously signed contractual obligations.

All those contracts can simply be made void by a new law. Laws passed by Governments trump whatever contracts corporations sign to own artists and authors.

<<SNIP>>

Actually, invalidating all those old contracts fails basic constitutional law. See Article 1 Section 9: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." Invalidating those contracts which were entirely legal under the law as it was when they were signed fits the definition of an "ex post facto Law" to a T! That is, it makes illegal something that was legal when it was originally done. Congress can outlaw such contracts in the future if they so desire (and if the law is signed by the Pres. and passes muster with the courts), but they cannot invalidate existing contracts that were legal when the parties entered into them.*

Xenophon

*Note: this is not the same question as whether the Courts can invalidate a contract after the fact -- they can do so exactly when they determine that the contract was not valid at the time the parties entered into it. This happens, for example, when the contract is in violation of law, or when it is so lopsided that there cannot be any meaningful negotiation or alternative (for one of the parties). There're lots of other reasons, these are just two examples.

[Alisa]

Wait, so I'm supposed to pay a tax so I can do all the editing and filtering myself? Um... no.

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

And since I watch Scrubs, I totally get what you are saying.

"SMILING! I hate smiling."

One of my favorite Kelso lines... (Pops up on TV/webcam) "Boo-ga! Boo-ga! Heh heh, I love the Interhighway."

-MJ

[elainevdw]

Originally Posted by mjh215

One of my favorite Kelso lines... (Pops up on TV/webcam) "Boo-ga! Boo-ga! Heh heh, I love the Interhighway."

My fave is "What has two thumbs and doesn't give a crap? DR. KELSO!" (as he points to his smiling face with his two thumbs)

I've been getting a kick out of all the muffin-tossing in the new season too. Hehehe.

[Xenophon]

Moejoe:

That's a well-written and obviously carefully considered post! It's a breath of fresh air in an otherwise overly-heated thread. I'll send the "Conga-Rats" your way

That said, however, I don't entirely agree with you (what a shock!).

Originally Posted by Moejoe

I think what we're seeing here is a cultural rift between European ideas of subsidisation and a more American idea of individual liberty.
<<SNIP>>

It sure seems like that to me. As you can probably tell from my other posts, I fall much more on the individual liberty side of things. As such, I consider your position well argued, carefully thought through... and dead wrong.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

In an industry with such razor thin margins quality and individual expression are never high on the agenda. The fabled editors of yore who would mould and cultivate a young writer are all but gone. This is a bottom-line industry and the only aim now is to find and market a product.

<<SNIP>>

Actually, those editors are still around. Jim Baen of Baen Books was one such, and Toni Weisskopf is following in his footsteps. The folks over at Tor do much the same. I admit, however, that these days it is exceptional rather than common.

Originally Posted by Moejoe

And then we come sharply to the inequity that is built into the publishing industry. When we see the top 1% of writers taking in the majority of the profit, how can we not wish for a more equal relationship to occur? How can we not wish for more individual voices to be allowed a moment in the sun, maybe even enough moments to grow into something fulfilling and worthwhile. Advances for the new writer are laughable, profits, if any, are measured in the low percentile. In this atmosphere any writer has to be a Patterson, King or Rowling to be worthwhile to the industry.

<<SNIP>

Surely this same 'inequity' is build into nearly all other industries as well. After all, only the top 1% (or less!) of writers are ever published in the first place! But then, what percentage of football players make it to the NFL? Or to a top club league like Manchester United or the All Blacks (for those of you to whom 'football' involves a round ball and feet).

And far fewer than 1% of musicians are ever recorded. For which relief we should be duly grateful. Consider your typical elementary school talent show, if you doubt me on this one.

(Are you done wincing yet? OK, I'll go on...)

Only the top 1% of actors get any significant amount of work. The rest are waiters. Or carpenters. Or house-cleaners. Or...

In my own industry (software), there are solid studies showing that productivity and quality varies by two orders of magnitude between the best and worst professional programmers. (Yes, that really does mean a 100-times difference between best and worst -- not 100%, 100X!) And that doesn't count amateurs and students! But with the exception of the occasional winner at the "startup company casino" we don't see the top 1% of programmers making the majority of the money... unless, of course, we count all the people who program on the side while doing something else for a living. In which case, we can say with some confidence that the top 10% of programmers make 99% of the (programming) money. Is that a problem?

I assert that the prior examples are essentially similar to the programming example. I see no reason to believe that the distribution of income represents a significant problem.

My response to "How can we not wish for more individual voices to be allowed a moment in the sun, maybe even enough moments to grow into something fulfilling and worthwhile." is this: They can certainly write as much as they like. They can put their writing up on the Web; they can join writer's groups and get critiqued; they can pay to have their work printed at a vanity publisher. They can even submit to magazines, book publishers, etc., and be published in their turn if they are good enough (and, I suppose, lucky enough). But why should they have any call on my (or anyone's) tax dollars? Should we subsidize starving musicians? Football players? Basket-weavers? Investment bankers? Where does it stop?

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Where does that leave us and the publishing industry in the face of modern technologies? Well, for the writer, there is no better time to go it alone. Subsidisation may not be the end-all panacea the writer is looking for, but in coutnries that are favourable to taxtation for the arts, it maybe one method for the writer to survive. On the other hand, digital publishing by the sole author is more viable now than ever before. And it is this the lone author that will finally kill the publishing industry.

A writer does not have to set any fixed price, he has no major overheads to consider apart from hosting a website and the tools with which to produce the original work. Translations, as we've seen with Cory Doctorow's work, can be undertaken by eager and willing fans of the work. Editing can be done by the writer if he's so inclined, shared amongst 'alpha-testers' or outsourced to a more critical eye. The argument of quality derived from the series of hurdles a writer must go through in the traditional publishing industry is almost laughable when we look at the 'quality' of what is released by that same industry every day. The writer, alone, setting his own price, working at whatever pace he may wish, and in direct contact with the readers becomes his own publishing industry. This writer, savvy with P2P distribution, excited by what technology offers and working under his own profit incentives, cannot be beat by an industry that is still trying to fit an old business model into into the connected world. This new writer is free to write whatever fancy he likes without worry or fear of the bottom-line, he gives his writing away free and asks in return only the kindness of strangers to keep him going.

The future may not be subsidized, but it is more than likely to be gifted from reader to writer and back again. Maybe, in that future we'll see more rubbish, but we'll also discover diamonds and those diamonds, for us the readers, will cost less and less. In this model individual liberty and collective sharing becomes part and parcel of the way things are.

For me, the publishing industry is a dinosaur looking up into the sky as the comet approaches, a puzzled look upon its face.

This last chunk is true as far as it goes. But I note that even authors who have successfully used the "internet tip jar" are thrilled to place their work with a real publisher. (Anecdote: Sharon Lee & Steven Miller wrote two of their recent novels on-line for tip-jar payment while they were between publishers. It helped to keep a roof over their heads, and was a generally good thing. But they're still thrilled to have placed the books with Baen -- publication expected in 2010 sometime. And they'll make LOTS more money from the published versions than they did through the tip-jar. But I digress...)

Anyway, it's a lovely vision. I fear, however, that it will be a very long time before we see major authors "published" this way rather than through traditional publishing houses (or even semi-traditional ones like Baen). Fortunately, a free market leaves lots of room for lots of different business models. If the on-line, self-"published", crowd-sourced model really is better -- it'll win. And that will be just fine. If it isn't, it won't win. And that will be just fine too.

Thanks again for a well-written and well-argued post!

Xenophon

P.S. You wrote: "The argument of quality derived from the series of hurdles a writer must go through in the traditional publishing industry is almost laughable when we look at the 'quality' of what is released by that same industry every day."

Actually, if you dig into the slush-pile (at any publisher that still has one) you'll see that the argument of quality is, if anything, understated. The "quality" of writing demonstrated by the average submission really is that much worse than even the published dreck we see "released by that same industry every day." Metaphorically speaking, the average slush-pile submission makes the beginning musicians of my notional elementary-school talent show sound like the New York Philharmonic!

[lilac_jive]

Or, "Do you need a nappy-nap? I love nappy-naps."

I really do love that show

[giddion]

Charbax please I need your assistance, you keep referring to an "Oboma art tax" or a new "Oboma Law" and yes I have gone back through your entire post history on this forum, but you never provide a link to any news articles or any reliable information source regarding this subject. We only get your interpretation/understanding of this 'law' I've also done searches on news articles and the general web on just about every keyword that would give information on this fabulous law and still can't find it.

With our political structure Obama has no ability to pass a law or tax without it making it's way through congress resulting in a large volume of discussion and revision, this is why it's a democracy. I'm amazed if Obama is proposing a change to international copyright law that there isn't a much larger volume of static surrounding it. Please provide a link to this proposal.

I don't like discussing something this controversial without being properly informed.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by giddion

Charbax please I need your assistance, you keep referring to an "Oboma art tax" or a new "Oboma Law" and yes I have gone back through your entire post history on this forum, but you never provide a link to any news articles or any reliable information source regarding this subject.

Warner Music for example, acknowledges that a Music Tax is the only viable solution: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs...-public-debate

The French Socialist presidential candidate who lost by a relatively small margin in 2007 to right wing conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was proposing to introduce this art tax in France under the name "The Global Licence". There are links but in French.

The $125 million Google Books Settlement includes a full unrestricted free access for Universities to all books. And it includes plans for a global Google Books subscription plan. Simply make it law so that the Google Subscription plan should work across the whole Internet and through other providers. I think most people would agree. Arguably, the industry could figure out that unlimited art subscription price for themselves, and set margins and shares, roaming fees and all that by themselves in the industry. Though I think it is pretty obvious that even well intentionned Google and Amazon and plenty other wannabe online Book/blogs/music/movies publishing giants cannot just agree on setting an inter operable standard on subscription prices and on the models for redistribution of that subscription money to artists. Thus I think it makes quite a lot of sense that this needs to be International and regulated by the Governments. You cannot let the industry regulate itself, that never works.

Although the official language can be interpreted very broadly. You could read into following statements of the Obama agenda on http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/technology/

Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets

Protect the Openness of the Internet: Support the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.
Encourage Diversity in Media Ownership: Encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum.

[giddion]

OK, I've read those links in their entirety and I find nothing in there that even comes close to your proposed solution of a $5 dollar per person tax to prepay authors/artists for there works based on some internet determined skill rating.

Nor did I see anything about creating new laws that will eliminate publishers and record labels, in fact the clear statements regarding protection of copyrights and the owners of IP would indicate the total opposite of your statements.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

we can immediately identify exactly who's reading those dangerous free-thinking/right-wing/left-wing/communist/terrorist/socialist/pro-union/anti-union/conservative/liberal books and articles (I'll call them XXX books hereafter). That'll make it really easy to put them up against the wall after the revolution!

Don't you think that the NSA, FBI, Jack Bauer CTU whatever already know pretty well what everyone is doing online the way things are today? And don't you think that the governments will keep on knowing no matter what you do?

I think the best way to do those statistics would be to use up to several independent measurement institutes each putting their measuring equipments at all kinds of different places on the Internet. All providing authenticated session statistics but just like Google insisted upon being asked by the Bush administration, not providing directly identifiable user identities. Although using parsing and whatever, the Government will always be able to know if they really want to.

Then on the other side you can have several recommendations engines and algorithms working to try to provide the best of the best recommendations for each user on which other books they may like, which authors they may want to check out. Those recommendations algorithms can be worked on by any number of advanced mathematicians, using APIs hooking into the rest of the databases.

Not one company should own the subscription model, not one company should own the statistics, not one company should own the unique recommendations engine, not one company should be able to sign exclusive distribution deals, that would simply be anti-competitive and we already have laws against that.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Warner Music for example, acknowledges that a Music Tax is the only viable solution: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs...-public-debate

Warner music wants a tax because they know they can arrange to get a huge share of it. You rail against big business and then trust that what Warner wants will be good for you?

[Xenophon]

Don't you think that the NSA, FBI, Jack Bauer CTU whatever already know pretty well what everyone is doing online the way things are today? And don't you think that the governments will keep on knowing no matter what you do?

I think that they can know quite a lot -- if they work at it. After all, computers and computerized records raise truly terrifying privacy issues. Just attend any of the lectures at my university's (Carnegie Mellon University, that is) "Computers, Organization, and Society" track and you'll learn far more than you ever wanted to know about such issues.

But that's no reason to make it easy for them! And the system you describe would have put Thomas Paine (and the rest of the US founding fathers) right out of business. Not to mention the old Soviet 'Samizdat' writers. Not even a court order needed. Just look at the cash flow using data that the Gov't has to have in order to make the payments!

As for "will keep on knowing no matter what you do" -- that's sort of the point. I want the Googles of the world to be able to tell the Gov't to take a hike. They can do that because the Gov't doesn't already have the data. And they can insist on a court order, with judges who can (usually) be reasoned with.

A system that just hands over the necessary data to the Gov't -- just to make it more convenient to pay some artists, no less! -- simply invites misuse. We may not be able to stop such misuse in the worst cases, but we can surely try make it more difficult and less likely.

Xenophon

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Warner music wants a tax because they know they can arrange to get a huge share of it. You rail against big business and then trust that what Warner wants will be good for you?

Warner hired Jim Griffin to provoke discussion about new business models. Not all people working for corporations need to be 100% corrupt. Some can have good ideas sometimes.

Though Warner is desperate to hold onto whichever second chance they can get, just as any other old media publishing and broadcasting giant. Even if they know they are going to be removed by the new paradigm eventually, be it in 6 months, 2 years or 10 years. For each month that they can continue to control the system, it's billions of dollars more for their shareholders, billions more to expand their influence and power on society, which they plan then to divert to something completely different once their influence on arts and media has been rendered completely irrelevant.

You see, the corporation believes its massive amounts of money and proprieties amassed over the years will continue to have the same value no matter if their current business models are forced to be cannibalized.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Charbax

Warner hired Jim Griffin to provoke discussion about new business models. Not all people working for corporations need to be 100% corrupt. Some can have good ideas sometimes.

Though Warner is desperate to hold onto whichever second chance they can get, just as any other old media publishing and broadcasting giant. Even if they know they are going to be removed by the new paradigm eventually, be it in 6 months, 2 years or 10 years. For each month that they can continue to control the system, it's billions of dollars more for their shareholders, billions more to expand their influence and power on society, which they plan then to divert to something completely different once their influence on arts and media has been rendered completely irrelevant.

You see, the corporation believes its massive amounts of money and proprieties amassed over the years will continue to have the same value no matter if their current business models are forced to be cannibalized.

The tax isn't a new paradigm. It was tried first with recordable media like cassette tapes. Small labels and artists got jack all out that deal. The big labels got the money. For them to be eliminated, you need a system that can't be gamed. I doubt you'll ever find one.

[Charbax]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

I want the Googles of the world to be able to tell the Gov't to take a hike.

They still can under my suggestion. Basically the Government would regulate a global subscription plan, authenticating users using something like a verifiable-ID such as OpenID, using multiple independent sources for statistics to compare and verify trends in usage statistics and user ratings and then using multiple recommendations algorithms to diversify the usage of as many of the works of art as possible.

Nowhere in my plan does bureaucrats in the Government look at names in databases, see what they are reading, and picks artists to pay. The whole system should be one standard and the actual technological implementations can be outsourced to Google, Amazon and whoever else can provide such huge cloud computing infrastructures.

The point here is that Google and Amazon should compete on providing cloud computing infrastructure, such as databases, authentification systems even standards for Connected E-Reader devices. But those technological entities should NOT function as publishers taking cuts on sales of ebooks or doing any kind of exclusive backdoor dealings with publishing companies for exclusive distribution rights. Money to pay for the technological service and infrastructure should be completely separate from the money going from readers directly to authors. And there should be absolutely no intermediaries in between the readers and the authors. The authors should have complete artistic freedom and complete executive control on the production of their artistic projects.