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Slashdot | Sony CEO Proposes “Guardrails For the Internet”

Micheal Lynton, the guy who said ‘I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.’ has posted an editorial at the Huffington Post titled Guardrails for the Internet, in which he defends his comment, and suggests that just as the interstate system needs guardrails, so too does the information superhighway. The following is pretty indicative of the article: ‘Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is ‘beyond store hours’ and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want. Freedom without restraint is chaos, and if we don’t figure out some way to prevent online chaos, the quantity, quality and availability of the kinds of entertainment, literature, art and scholarship we need to have a healthy, vibrant culture will suffer.’

What we’re seeing here are the death throes of an industry that refuses to change.

There is money to be made out there…  Tremendous opportunities to forge ahead…  But these old industries are too set in their ways to recognize the possibilities.

Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is ‘beyond store hours’ and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want.

This quote, right here, illustrates the fundamental difference between success and failure.

On the Internet there’s no reason to have store hours.  It’s all code.  It’s all database-driven, dynamically-generated, streaming…  It’s all available 24/7 with minimal human intervention.

I understand that he’s using the ‘beyond store hours’ thing as a metaphor…  That he doesn’t actually mean that a web store would be closed.  Rather, what he means is that people want to do things that the media companies don’t want them to.  They want to make copies of their movies and music…  Share it with their friends…  Use it to make a mixtape…  Whatever.

This guy views sharing a song with your friends or copying it to your iPod as no different than breaking a store’s windows and stealing a CD.

But we aren’t talking about physical goods anymore.  We aren’t talking about a CD or a DVD.  When I buy a song on-line I haven’t somehow depleted a virtual warehouse – I’ve made a perfect copy of it.  You only store a single copy of that song, and you can sell it billions of times.  And if I don’t buy the song, if I pirate it, I still haven’t depleted a virtual warehouse.  You’ve still got your single copy, and you can still sell it billions of times.

The problem is that these days it is hard to charge people a lot for pure data.  Just a song, or just a movie, or just a piece of software doesn’t get you too far.  Sure, people will pay for it if the price is right…  But if the price is wrong it is easier just to pirate the thing.  And if that’s all you’ve got – pure data – then you can pirate the whole thing very easily.

But if you sell your CD/DVD with a neat case and some photographs you can turn it into a collector’s item.  And folks will happily pay – not for the data, but for all the extra goodies.

And if you sell your software with an on-line community, or kick-ass technical support people will happily pay.

The problem is that, for the last several decades, distribution has been hard.  It has been difficult to get the data from one point to another.  Unless you had very expensive equipment making a copy resulted in some kind of degredation.  You had to warehouse hundreds of copies and sell physical items instead of the data store on them.

This meant that you had to either pay what the media companies wanted for their data, or put up with a substandard copy.

The Internet has democratized the distribution of data.  You don’t have to store your data on a CD, or a DVD, or a tape, or a disk.  You don’t need to ship crates across the country.  You don’t need to stock store shelves.  You can just keep the data on a server somewhere and transmit it across the Internet.  And pretty much anyone can do that.

I can do that.  You can do that.  My parents can do that.  The media companies can do that.  But they don’t want to compete on this level playing field.

They’d much rather go back to selling just the data – no extras, no frills.  They’d much rather go back to charging whatever they want, and forcing people to pay it, because there’s no other way to get the data.

T’was in the early evenin’
Near the presence of the moon
You told me you would meet me here
Well now is not too soon
This dagger twisting in my back
Tells me I never should
Have trusted everything to fall
From beggar to fool
I see your face like every race
A serpent with two arms
Devouring me while rains the sun
With dreams in foreign lands
This cold dark tormented hell
Is all I’ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

With another bag of bricks

I scratch your name across these walls
And with my blood turns red
Then drips upon my killing floor
Where I now call my bed
No precious light to harbor
Like so many here before
Now breathes a thousand more

With another bag of bricks

Temper filled with blindness
Leads this lost and lonely man
Dragged around your whipping tree
A scourge you can’t command
So deafen me with silence
Drown me with your roar
Scowl me with your hollow eyes
Still burnin’ to the core
No door will go unanswerd
Like so many closed before
No vagabond to knock upon
This tired and beatin’ war
When all return to exile
Free from all once bound
Decline and brawl old parasites
The truth will yet be found

With another bag of bricks
With another bag of bricks
With another bag of bricks

This cold dark tormented hell
Is all I’ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be your judge

Temper filled with blindness
Leads this lost and lonely man
Dragged around your whipping tree
A scourge you can’t command
So deafen me with silence
Drown me with your roar
Scowl me with your hollow eyes
Still burnin’ to the core
No door will go unanswerd
Like so many closed before
No vagabond to knock upon
This tired and beatin’ war
When all return to exile
Free from all once bound
Decline and brawl old parasites
The truth will yet be found

With another bag of bricks
With another bag of bricks
With another bag of bricks
With another bag of bricks

Well I know, I miss more than hit
With a face that was launched to sink
An’ I seldom feel, the bright relief
It’s been the Worst Day Since Yesterday

If there’s one thing I have said
Is that the dreams I once had, now lay in bed
As the four winds blow, my wits through the door
It’s been the Worst Day Since Yesterday

Fallin’ down to you sweet ground
Where the flowers they bloom
It’s there I’ll be found
Hurry back to me, my wild calling
It’s been the Worst Day Since Yesterday

Though these wounds have seen no wars
Except for the scars I have ignored
And this endless crutch, well it’s never enough
It’s been the Worst Day Since Yesterday

Hell says hello, well it’s time to I should go
To pastures green, that I’ve yet to see
Hurry back to me, my wild calling
It’s been the Worst Day Since Yesterday

Pretty much our entirely family enjoys punk music.  I’ve always been a big fan of The Clash, and both Terri and Christopher listen to a lot of Green Day.  So, one of our friends from WoW decided that Christopher would probably really enjoy Flogging Molly.

They sent him a couple CDs for Birthdays/Christmas/whatever…  I don’t know if he ever listened to them or not, or how much he likes them, but I never really heard them.  He certainly wasn’t playing them loudly at all hours of the night like he does some of his other music.

This year, for St. Patrick’s Day, our local ‘alternative’ station played a variety of vaguely Irish music – including “Drunken Lullabies” by Flogging Molly.  I was instantly hooked.

I’ve been listening to little else since then…  And with how rough work has been lately, “The Worst Day Since Yesterday” has become an unpleasantly appropriate theme song to my life.