Streaming’s not evil
Cory Doctorow’s got this wrong. He’s having one of those slightly hysterical moments that only someone who really understands technology can have. The technically naive idea that streaming and downloading are different things has got him all wound up: “But they’re the same thing! They’re the same thing!” I can almost see him stamping his [...]
Big bogus ratio
Anti-piracy people are fond of citing the big ratio. They’re talking about the ratio of paid-for music downloads to non-paid-for (i.e. stolen) music downloads. They like the big ratio because it makes things look really bad for the content industry – it dramatises the narrative. Here it is again, in the FT, quoted by Salamander [...]
A parable of sorts (about the music business, I feel obliged to point out)
The year is 1823. Nathaniel Burrell, sheep farmer, has stumbled upon a method for duplicating sheep. To cut a long story short, after years of essentially random cross-breeding he now can produce new sheep on demand at no cost. A quick twist of the tail of one of his miraculous cross-bred sheep and you’ve got [...]
Magazine masterclass
Right, I’ve been very busy with my new thing: I’m blogger in residence at the BBC. Honestly. It’s really cool. Follow my comings- and-goings at the special blog I’ve set up for the purpose at commonplatform.co.uk (the feed’s here). More about the whole thing here later…
In the meantime, I just want to share with you [...]
Record label angst
If the last three generations (five years = one generation) of music industry executives had been contestants on The Apprentice they’d all have been fired by now. So many self-destructive manoeuvres, so many technological and commercial dead-ends, so little readiness to try stuff. And I speak as a supporter of the industry: I don’t believe [...]