11 June 2009

Copyright Industries Very Nearly Get It

They're getting there:

Copyright holders on Wednesday acknowledged they have done a poor job of countering the “anti-copyright” lobby and demonstrating the creative community’s value to the world.

During the second day of the 9-10 June International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers’ (CISAC) World Copyright Summit here, some content creators also lamented that instead of fighting for compensation with the advent of new technologies, they fought the technology - like the VCR - itself.

But then they spoil it with stuff like this:

”The enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic, and they always talk about the need for balance,” said Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and senior policy adviser for the Motion Picture Association of America. “We have got to do a better job” at attempting approaches at copyright protection “in a way that we get paid but also that consumers can access our works,” he added.

So...balance is bad, eh? And still looking for copyright *protection*, instead of working on the business models.

And then there's this:

Although Israelite made the comparison that if people were stealing computers from stores en masse, the technology industry would be up in arms, Shapiro argued that it is not the same, and that copyright and intellectual property rights are different than “real” property - a statement that received groans from the rights holder-friendly audience. “That’s hurting your case because you’re being rejected by anyone under 25 who is saying, ‘these guys are full of it,’” Shapiro continued.

OK, I was wrong: they *still* don't get it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I liked this quote: "We've got to do more of that. We live in an age where we cannot block access to our content," he said. "People are going to get it one way or the other. We would like them to pay for it and we need to seek out ways where they can pay for it. But just saying 'no' isn't the answer."
Echoes what you were saying about finding the business model.

Glyn Moody said...

Yes, they're getting *really* close, but they still keep making fundamental errors in their analysis of what's going on. Sad.