Delicate Genius Blog

Went to the Cory Doctorow talk last night.

I was going to give a blow by blow, but I think it’s (the Sydney + Melbourne talks) been covered well enough in other blogs so I’ll leave you to read them:

Daryl Cook (who has a great mind map of the talk – highly recommend you have a look at it)
Netweb
Cameron Reilly
James Mc Parlane’s Blog

I did however make a recording of the Sydney talk. You can listen to it by clicking play below or by downloading the MP3 here.

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Having heard Doctorow give many a speech I’d say that much of the introduction was the regular intro that he does. It’s a great opener for the general audience and sets a good understanding of the history and motivation behind copyright and its relationship with culture.

The highlights to me:

Motivation for DRM
I liked his points on why the likes of Apple and Microsoft are so hell bent on implementing their proprietary DRM

It’s a means to control distribution of mainstream content as well as to solidify the position of their software/hardware by making the switching cost too high. Eg, once you’ve invested money in iTunes music that you can’t take to another device, you’re unlikely to switch to another device as the switching cost may be too hight. He frequently discussed reasons why DRM is bad for the consumer. I felt like yelling out this URL half way through :-)

Internet ready business models
He did a great job of describing what he believes an Internet ready business model is and isn’t.

It’s not:

• Criminalising the majority of your customers
• Restricting scientific development
• Criminalising scientists and technology developers

It is:

• Conditional access to content
• Blanket licensing
• Increased exposure and visibility – his quote “the biggest problem for an artist is not piracy, it’s obscurity” sums this one up well

Content is not king
He contends that it’s not about content, it’s about conversation. The telecommunications industry is worth substantially more than the entertainment one. Why? Because we have an innate desire to communicate and interact with each other.

So, it’s about having the ability to express yourself and have a conversation that makes for a good media and internet experience and not necessarily good content alone.

Things I’d add (aka things I wanted to yell out during the talk)
The crowd was predominantly movie industry people who where concerned about how this digital media era will affect them. To them I’d suggest they watch (or listen, or read) Piracy Is Good? by Mark Pesce. He does a great job of explaining the new world and possible workable models within it. Incidentally, he was also there last night sitting behind me. I felt so nerdy spotting some of these people that I read or listen to who are fairly obscure to the rest of the world.

I was also reminded just how little the average monkey knows about the follies of DRM. iTunes Music Store is a huge success and average people buy DRM’ed CDs. Talks such as this do a great job of informing those interested who will go on to educate everyone else who’ll listen (like you, yes you). I think this has an impact but not a far enough reaching one.

I believe that DRM will collapse on itself. The biggest enemy to DRM is DRM itself. Sony’s rootkit issue proves this. The average consumer gets impacted enough in a real way and they will make choices that impact DRM implementers. The average DRM-unenlightened will only rebel against the tyranny of DRM when they are impacted by it. Wait till they want to switch from the iPod and realise they’re in a world of hurt. They’ll then wake up and want better choices. I just hope that by that point it won’t be too late.

-dg