

Doctorow Says Google & Amazon Stifle Progress - urlwolf
http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=178058&print=yes

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russell
Cory says that the mainstream publishers: book publishers, movie studios,
record labels, and their allies/dupes like the Authors Guilds are acting
against their own interests by resisting their own interests by making deals
with Apple, Google, and Amazon. Instead, they should be making reasonable
distribution deals with anyone who asks. An individual ought to be able to
create his/her own internet radio station even if it had an audience of one.

Corey didn't explicitly say it this way, but the publishers should stop
looking at net distributors as pirates. Instead deal with them as local retail
dealers, like your neighborhood book store or movie theater. The current setup
makes monopolists out Google and Apple. These gatekeepers will ultimately have
more power than the publishers to the detriment of artists, publishers, and
consumers alike.

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lionhearted
Thanks for the summary. He made some really excellent points, but
unfortunately he doesn't differentiate between his facts, guesses,
speculations, and opinions. It's all written in the same tone - which had me
stopping and doublechecking a bunch of points, with, "Is this a fact, or is he
extrapolating, or is this his opinion...?"

Bit of a confusing read, but there's some real gems in there. This was the
most interesting part for me, about Google happily letting the Author's Guild
get class-action status:

[http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=178058&...](http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=178058&page_number=5)

Again, you can see the mix of facts and speculation and opinions all rolled
into a ball, but a pretty interesting piece none the less.

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frossie
Maybe I am being particularly thick right now but I am not entirely sure I
follow what he is objecting to. Google (and Amazon) allow me to find authors I
am interested in and buy their latest book - their self-published book because
their publisher dropped them due to poor sales. How is Googlezon equivalent to
publishers in this context?

Just because Googlezon have dominance (let's not have the M-argument again) in
their market does not mean their cultural effect is the same as if there was
only one book publisher. Google and Amazon aren't a publisher in this context,
they are a discovery service.

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iamwil
He's not against what Googlzon allows its users to do, but rather, the deal
that content creators struck with Googlzon which leads to laws with conditions
that favors Googlzon as a big company, not Googlzon as a startup that they
once were.

One such condition are royalties or payment that a big company can readily
afford, but not a startup.

This affects that industry market for all subsequent startups which want to
enter that market.

So instead of just doing something and asking for permission later (as all
startups and upstarts do), you need to spend time and energy into lawyers and
such. It's hard to imagine Google succeeding if, in addition to all the
technical hurdles, they had to amass and direct a team of lawyers also.

So the question we have to ask ourselves are what startups--and subsequently--
what innovations are being stifled, if not avoided altogether due to copyright
laws getting in the way?

I hope it goes without saying that innovation is what keeps a country ahead of
others economically and militarily (probably among others I'm not thinking
of), and that's why it's important in the long run.

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frossie
_So the question we have to ask ourselves are what startups--and subsequently
--what innovations are being stifled, if not avoided altogether due to
copyright laws getting in the way?_

Well that is exactly what I don't get. I mean, there seems to be an assumption
that market dominance in cultural distribution is _obviously_ bad, no
explanation required. But it is not clear to me what the precise danger is
here, because it is not clear to me what the necessity is for content creators
to stick with Googlezon if Googlezon as a content publisher becomes
deleterious to their well-being.

He mentions that there are only 6 (major) movie studios. Let's pretend that
they have a merge-a-thon and get down to one major movie studio. Would it
matter to anyone? Probably not, because the 6 current large studios more or
less all churn out the same mainstream fair. Would a small independent studio
be worse off if there was one instead of six major studios? Probably not,
because the small independent ("startup" in your parlance) exists to cater to
a certain niche that welcomes its products almost by definition because they
are not a major studio cookie-cutter production.

Don't get me wrong - I can seriously wind myself up thinking about the
consolidation of the news media, or of chip manufacturing companies, but in
this particular case I still don't understand what I am really supposed to be
afraid of. And he asks for pretty major action as a result of a danger that is
not particularly clear.

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robryan
Not a legal expert by any stretch but couldn't a later group of authors
challenge who the outcome of the case applied to? If there in no way
affiliated with the Authors Guild?

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zandorg
I've just been watching a Boston Legal episode (from series 4, ep 7), and
fictionally, they sue YouTube. Not 'MegaView' or 'SuperVid', but YOUTUBE. I
wondered how they can get away with using a real company in a fictional
lawsuit?

