Andy Hawkes

Piracy (or “How to make money from content in a digital age”)

In a digital world distribution is easy, and as internet access and bandwidth expand the marginal costs of consuming media diminish. With consumption of digital media on the rise, how can content providers secure their revenue streams?

Many content providers will decry the woes of file sharing and piracy, citing the impact on the producers of entertainment media - artists, musicians, sportsmen - all relying on the content providers to buy their wares and distribute them, thus ensuring continued investment in their future.

Unfortunately there is also an increasing sense among consumers that providers are out of step with the way that people actually want to consume the media.

Take a humble CD. I can walk in to HMV and buy a CD that can be played in my CD player, DVD player, computer, car etc. etc. without hindrance, yet if I buy that same content in digital form I am often saddled with restrictive DRM that prevents me from playing it on any more than 5 nominated devices or from transfering it to different storage media as I see fit.

Most consumers don’t think that buying a CD is just buying a physical form of a specific piece of media content, they are buying those songs to listen to as they see fit. That may not be the strict legal situation but it is the human perception.

Secondly there is the issue of convenience.

I want to listen to music and watch movies and TV programmes when it’s convenient to me, in a form that is convenient to me, on a device that is convenient to me. I don’t want to wait for a UK channel to pick up a programme that aired in the states 6 months ago if I can just download it - it’s not a question of malicious piracy or illegal distribution, I just want to watch my favourite programmes - I’m showing them loyalty, not stabbing them in the back.

The problem is one of abundance when large scale content providers are used to scarcity.

They are used to drip feeding us tasty morsels down a limited pipeline over which we have little control or choice. Unfortunately for them they are no longer the only game in town - I can get my media fix from any number of sources, bypassing their scheduled delivery and demographic targetting, skipping their coveted prime advertising spots with gay abandon, and basically just consuming the media in the way that I want to.

The big question for content providers should not be how to defeat peer-to-peer distribution, bespoke media consumption or time-shifting, it should be how to harness it, benefit from it, build on it, and ultimately monetise it.

If they can’t guarantee millions of eyeballs glued to the latest prime-time dramas then the advertisers won’t pay them big fat fees and they won’t be able to pay the content creators their equally fat fees for their content, and they in turn won’t be able to pay Hugh Laurie a squillion dollars an episode to walk with a limp and verbally bitch-slap anyone foolish enough to not be as bright as his character (who I love, by the way - go Greg!), and then less people will tune it to view the stuff… Vicious circle, no?

Enforcement, censorship, and freedom of speech

We live in a country with a strong tradition of a free, independent press and liberty of individual thought and speech, yet we worry that the internet is an unenforceable digital frontier akin to the wild west.

It isn’t, but we should be glad of our freedoms in that regard. As with any new technology, enforcement will initially be tricky but with sufficient will it is entirely possible - just look at the Great Firewall of China, cast your eyes towards the recent events in Iran, and even look at our supposedly liberal cousins in Australia.

The question is not “can the internet be policed across borders” but “how would we want the internet to be policed across borders”.

Common morality frowns upon certain acts, images, and concepts, and whilst they still exist both physically and digitally the majority of people will largely escape their presence online - there will be those who seek out those acts and images and we have a legal structure to take action against them (often across borders where there exists a coalition of the willing).

Localisation versus location awareness

There was a good deal of talk about the emerging trend for localised information and small interest groups paired with the promise of ubiquitous, location-aware devices such as the iPhone and its smartphone brethren, but I wonder whether the discussion is not more about location awareness/sensititvity than it is about locality.

GPS-enabled smartphones make it possible to discover information on the hoof and to find things in our immediate vicinity, but that’s not localisation it’s location sensitivity.

How do we use that technology to foster offline, face-to-face human interaction on a localised basis? Given that many of us (particuarly the city dwellers) live increasingly isolated physical existences with little interaction with our immediate geographical neighbours, is it even possible (or for some people desireable)?

I may be able to use my phone to find the nearest purveyor of coffee-based beverages if parachuted into an unfamiliar city, but how does that help me connect with real human beings in a meaningful way (other than to exchange cursory pleasantries at the espresso bar)?

Political engagement and grass-roots campaigning

Apparently we are increasingly disenfranchised when it comes to party politics in the UK, and there is a strong feeling that the political classes are more detached from the views and concerns of the man on the street than at any time in living memory.

Old news, you might think.

In the run up to the expected demolition of labour government general election in 2010 there is an increasing call for grass-roots action and citizen engagement in the political process from an increasingly online and technically-savvy audience, but what of the afore mentioned man on the street? Do the disenfranchised yet politically engaged middle classes run the risk of further alienating the “average” member of the electorate with a new wave of political rhetoric that fails to address their core concerns? Will the engaged minority outweigh the apathetic majority?

To my mind the failure is not purely one of policy, it is one of process.

The western democratic model of short-term electoral cycles necessarily promotes short-termism in policy and a reticence to invest in long-term strategy that may entail short-term suffering in the name of long-term progress and stability due to the simple expedient of being seen to make everyones life noticeably better in no more than 4 year intervals.

Whilst we are currently seeing an increase in political rhetoric focussing on building a steady recovery from the current global recession that is very much a forced march - as Chancellor Gordon Brown presided over the years of excess and self-delusion that led to the fall and he wasn’t seen calling for a more considered, steady, and pragmatic approach until the wheels had all but fallen off the economy.

Perhaps now is actually a good time to promote those “hard to swallow” policies that might make a genuine difference down the line - the populace has already realised that the economy isn’t going to swing back to its champagne-swigging highs over night, so why don’t we take the opportunity to plan for a new economic and political future?

I was fortunate enough to attend the inaugural WIRED Intelligence Briefing this morning in the salubrious surroundings of the Faraday Theatre at the Royal Institution of Great Britain and I enjoyed it immensely.

It was refreshing to be treated to a multi-disciplinary perspective on the opportunities and challenges provided by advances in technology alongside philosophy, psychology, politics, and the media, and presented a number of interesting ideas - it was just a shame that there wasn’t any time for a Q&A.

I’ll probably come back and update this as and when my synapses fire a little more accurately (as I fear I am currently being beset by the vanguard of a vicious man-flu attack), but I’ll post up some thoughts that initially stuck in my head.