On Net Neutrality…
Posted by Craig Mazin on 14 Mar 2010 at 01:28 pm | Tagged as: The Craft & Trade, WGA Issues
Carleton Eastlake, a current member of the WGAw board, has some thoughts on net neutrality, and he asked me to clarify mine. Here goes, with my responses in context…
There are two kinds of piracy that impact our (writers, that is) bottom line. The first is physical piracy: a factory in China duping DVDs of a handheld video recording of a theatrical screening of Avatar, for instance. The second is electronic piracy, in which legitimate DVDs are ripped and illegally distributed over the internet, almost exclusively via peer-to-peer channels.Craig – I’m not sure I follow how piracy issues and genuine net neutrality issues are linked. I don’t mean this rhetorically, I’d really like to hear the expanded, not soundbite argument of how the sort of net neutrality the WGA or responsible Internet interest groups advocate precludes successful anti-piracy measures. Your post doesn’t give any concrete illustrations of what the problem might be. And on reflection, I’ve never actually seen a concrete description of the problem in the media or the tech magazines – just sloganeering.
I’m a little surprised by your admission that you don’t follow how piracy issues and genuine net neutrality are linked, because they’re so closely and clearly linked. I’m hardly the first person to point this out. The fundamental principle of net neutrality is that all information distributed over the internet be treated equally, i.e. internet service providers ought not censor, throttle or favor the transmission of any particularly web site or channel.
However, if we do not have net neutrality, it’s quite easy to see how the major ISP’s could, as part of content provision deals with the studios, throttle or completely block out the major P2P channels. In fact, the efficacy with which this could be accomplished is one of the battle cries for net neutrality by those who support it. This isn’t a question of conjecture.
You argue in one of your replies to Jeff Lowell that pirates won’t mind waiting long times for their theft. I disagree. If the time to download a DVD went from one hour to two days, it would have a massive negative impact on piracy, and hopefully a positive impact on our bottom line as writers.
I’m a big believer in free speech on the internet. However, let’s be honest about P2P networks. They exist almost primarily to circumvent licensing agreements on software, music and video. And they’re stealing money from writers every day. What an odd institution for the WGA to be defending…
Yes, to be sure, if the Internet were entirely privatized and a handful of companies allowed to monopolize its content, there would be no piracy. But there would also be no private email (email attachments would have to be scanned to be sure they weren’t communicating pirated content), etc. I know you’re not advocating that, but short of that, how concretely does piracy and equal access by non-criminal users on the Web interact?I don’t think you quite understand what net neutrality is, Carleton. No one can “own” or monopolize the internet. The internet is nothing more than a connection of gazillions of individually-owned websites. And, of course, we still live in a free market. If I don’t like the way AT&T is delivering the content located on all of those individually-owned websites, I can opt for Charter or satellite service or WiMax from Clear…and that list is only going to grow.
If we do not have net neutrality, here’s what it means. ISP’s can tier their service so that some web sites deliver information faster to the end users than others…or slower to their end users than others. That’s the bottom line. Net non-neutrality doesn’t mean that your ISP will own your content, rifle through your email or sleep with your wife.
What is means is that I could theoretically pay a base fee of $20 a month for standard service, and $40 for standard service plus access to superfast downloadable movies. That extra twenty bucks would get split between the ISP and the content providers, and we…as writers…would get a piece of the content providers’ ten bucks per subscriber. That’s a simplified vision of how it could work, but all I can tell you is this: it’s vastly preferable to the current model of, say, streaming network shows for frickin’ FREE…supported by “ads” that no one watches, and which do not add a dime to our residuals base.
As for maximizing the revenue of the surviving major media companies on the net by allowing a degree of monopolization, that’s a point I’m ready to debate. I agree that no one should want out of spite to reduce the revenue pool that writers and other talent share in from the major companies. But I’d much rather see independent and specialty production and distribution companies also thrive on the Net. Having worked for several years at Cannell, a successful writer-owned TV production and distribution company that expired along with fin-syn “broadcast neutrality”, to coin an analogy, I’ve directly experienced the model of how net neutrality can restore an era of independent production that creates enormous opportunity -and revenue – for writers.This is kind of shocking, coming from a board member of the WGAw. Let me get this straight. You favor the economic prospects of individual EMPLOYERS over the economic prospects of individual EMPLOYEES? Cannell the man was a writer. Cannell the company was an employer. As union members, our interests have to first run to the employees, Carleton. I, for instance, write movies for studios. My salary generates dues and P&H contributions to the union. Are you honestly saying that my financial bottom line is less important than the financial bottom line of a company hiring writers for an internet show?
See, the thing is, we’re writers until we’re not writers. The day I create The Mazin Internet Studio and launch a web show and hire writers to write on that web show, I’m an employer. I’m on the other side of the table. That’s not to say that I can’t be a good guy. However, it is to say that my interests as an employer shouldn’t be anywhere in the same galaxy of concern for the WGA as the interests of my employees.
In short, while I think it’s nice that writers can be as entrepreneurial on the web as they wish, the Writers Guild of America has to serve its primary function, which is to protect my interests as an employee. That’s what it’s federally chartered to do. That’s what all labor unions do. It’s fine for the WGA to help its employees grow into businesspeople, but not at the expense of the writers who still get hired to write.
Yes, we want to make sure that there are lots of employers for our services, and in that regard, I understand the desire to avoid anything that feels like it will throttle competition between the employers. But let’s be real…the companies that will challenge Fox, Disney, Sony, Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers aren’t internet shops set up by individual writers. It’s the other big monsters out there like Microsoft, Google, Clear Channel, etc.
Why? Unlike print media, which…on the internet at least…has the potential for very low-cost production, movies and television shows tend to require serious capital investment.
If you think the future of the Internet is 5 minute webisodes, sure, there’s no point in paying it any attention. If you think in the next 5 or 10 years Netflix-like streaming or rapid mail delivery services are going to continue to grow in market share, and that independent producers may produce directly for these services and by-pass the studios, then you may care much more about Net issues, and really not want to encourage economic concentration on the Net.Carleton, it’s precisely because I think the delivery system is going to get better and better that I worry about the impact of net neutrality. We will be able to download a feature film or television episode in HD in five minutes or less. At that point, why on God’s green earth would we want to limit the ability of the studios to monetize that speed and convenience? That’s our money too!
As another example, about the time Farscape was canceled by Sci-Fi, we made the simple calculation that if our hard-core fans made a micro-payment of 25 or even 50 cents an episode and there was a way to distribute it to them…we’d be in profit on the first day of release…and without broadcasters or cable services taking a share, giving notes… or canceling us. This wasn’t a daydream about writers owning the company or cooking up something in their basement, it meant that six sound stages in Australia and offices in the US and Britain, etc., originally founded by Jim Henson would be producing the same show with the same values and same budget…and that the same numbers watching us just in the US – not even the rest of the world – coughed up a direct tiny payment.This is important. If I stipulate that your math is correct, then the obvious question is: why didn’t you do it? Profit on the first day of release without any middlemen or creative meddlers…surely you didn’t walk away from the holy Grail of television writing without good reason?
Of course you didn’t. Farscape didn’t become a web series because you (meaning the writers) didn’t have the money to deficit finance the show until the episodes were ready to air.
That said, you would have also been the first show of its kind to prove that lots of micropayments could support a series with a cable or network level budget.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible. Who knows? Maybe one day it will happen. But in the meantime, there’s that saying about the bird in hand. We have a pretty big bird in hand. I question the wisdom of mortgaging the health of our traditional, dominant revenue stream in pursuit of a maybe-one day-no one yet, but who knows and wouldn’t it be cool? revenue stream.
Some of this makes me wonder if your perspective as a tent-pole feature writer may differ from the perspective of a TV writer or feature writers who want to work on smaller budget, independent films. Sure, to make a big-budget feature film, it’s handy to have very big studios around to finance them. But i think you may be underestimating the negative impact on every other category of production.First off, thanks for “tent pole,” although I don’t quite think I’ve earned that.
I actually think it’s television writers who stand to lose the most from net neutrality. As a feature writer, I know that while the DVD market is dwindling, there’s a real chance that the internet rental market (iTunes, essentially) will take off, and our internet rental rate is an outstanding 1.2% of gross. That’s five times the DVD rate.
Television, though…yikes. Right now, the traditional rerun system has gone bye-bye. In its place, the networks stream reruns on the web, and they basically do it for free. That’s no kind of model. Television writers really need a system in which their network and cable shows are generating legitimate license fee revenue. Net neutrality limits the companies’ ability to maximize that revenue, IMO.
In general, extreme concentration isn’t a good thing for an economy. We’ve all seen what banking and investment concentration, defense industry concentration, even concentration of seed production for farmers (see this week’s LA Times) has done. The ultimate concentration, after all, is state central planning like in the good old Soviet Onion. Perfect capitalism requires a perfectly efficient marketplace with an infinite number of sellers and buyers with perfect knowledge – a neutral Internet is just about the most perfect capitalistic marketplace one can conceive. I really think we ought to give it a chance.That does sound scary, but I don’t think it’s accurate. First, we have about the same number of major and minor studios as we’ve always had, going back to the 20′s. Second, the studios all hate each other and compete viciously for every dollar out there.
You view the studio system in too dystopian a fashion, and the internet in too utopian a manner. But in the end, I don’t really care whether or not the internet is a worker’s paradise.
Here’s what I care about.
My union has a contract with a number of companies. That contract pays me money as a percentage of their revenue. That revenue accounts for 100% of my income. It accounts for essentialy 100% of every WGA members’ income. The higher their applicable revenue goes, the more money I make.
If I’m going to support anything that negatively impacts or otherwise limits the growth of that revenue, it has to be really clear that I will net out positively.
In short, I think it’s unreasonable for the WGA to ask its members working in traditional media to subsidize the dreams of its members trying to strike it rich on the internet…particularly when it’s been years now, and web content creators haven’t really come close to duplicating the kind of income traditional media affords us.
Craig – Throttling delivery of a download so it takes two days is in practical effect an outright ban. For the sake of clarity that’s an issue that should be discussed separately from tiered pricing. And in fact, most of your arguments seem to address one or the other of two points: 1) that the ISPs should be allowed to ban peer-to-peer networks, not just charge them a little extra, and 2) that you think the power of the studios is so strong, writers are better off helping the existing studios and ISPs restrict access to Internet content in hopes of winning a share of the resulting profits through collective bargaining.
As for tiered pricing, as I wrote earlier, if it’s applied on a non-discriminatory water-meter-like basis, then I don’t think we have any disagreement. It doesn’t bother me, and it will somewhat discourage piracy though I doubt it will be a sufficient answer.
But when you argue that ISPs should be permitted to ban whole types of internet users, my questions above to Ted have to be answered. What are the criteria for banning people and who enforces them? And are you saying that you would only amend net neutrality to permit the banning of P2P, but still require free, neutral access for all other forms of use, which is a far more limited proposition than opposing all aspects of net neutrality, or do you really mean it when you seem to argue that a combination of studios and ISPs should be allowed to dominate the web through restrictive revenue sharing agreements?
In any event, we are obviously in disagreement when you say that no one is capable of monopolizing the Internet, particularly since you’re using my imprecise, more conversational employment of the term to set up a straw man. When I talk about monopolizing the Web, I thought I was pretty clear in meaning controlling access to it, not seizing control of every high school student’s Facebook page.As for access, only T-W is physically capable of providing streaming speeds at my home. To rival T-W, somebody would have to lay a new fiber network up the hill or put in more 4G towers than we have 3G towers now, both of which would face significant barriers to entry.
I don’t know much about the (previously dire) economics of satellite, which you also mentioned, but it seems existing satellite bandwidth is almost fully occupied just providing HD subscription content. The first ad for satellite Internet access I just bothered to look at promises a top speed of 1.5 Mps down and 256k up – and no mention of what must be horrendous latency. A second ad offers 5.0 Mbps/300K up…for $359 a month! At that point I lost interest in further checking your optimism about satillites – it doesn’t seem that they are really capable of competing with terrestrial systems.
Your also say you can opt for coverage from Clear – which probably means you aren’t in California at the moment, since the Clear site I just looked at doesn’t offer any service in the state.
In general one becomes worried about the quality of competition as the number of participants falls into the single digits and having only three participants or fewer raises serious questions about whether a free market, rather than an oligopoly, exists. My understanding is that in most of the U.S. there are only one or two last-mile ISPs and that there are serious barriers to entry to new ISPs. So despite your optimism about satellites and Clear, etc., I’d say in the US generally and at my home specifically, yes, access to the Web can be controlled by a monopoly or a consciously parallel oligopoly. Which means that in the absence of net neutrality enforced by the FCC, the ISPs could, indeed, reshape much of the Web economy to their own ends.
You say, “If we do not have net neutrality, here’s what it means. ISP’s can tier their service so that some web sites deliver information faster to the end users than others…or slower to their end users than others. That’s the bottom line.” But you start your post by saying that they can throttle P2P down to a 2-day download for a film. So your real bottom line is, they can completely exclude any user or competitor or lower-cost legitimate supplier they want.
You also hope that if there were tiered pricing (which isn’t the same as discriminatory pricing which you seem to really advocate) that the companies would drop their ad-supported downloads, make more money, and give us a share of their tier revenue. Like I said, I’m not opposed to tiered pricing. But I still think you’re optimistic and perhaps confused here. The ISPs certainly aren’t going to pay us – we can’t even strike against them – they’re not our employers. Are you really sure they would share revenue with the studios? All of them? Or just some of them? Because net-discrimination may turn around and bite studios that don’t own their own ISPs.
I agree that ad supported streaming isn’t generating much revenue for us or the studios at the moment. But is the unlikely hope of sharing in a few dollars a month of tiered revenue the answer? It seems to me that moving Hulu to a subscription model is going to generate a whole lot more revenue a whole lot sooner – and we already have MBA rights to that income.
You (rather uncharacteristically – usually you’re more cheerful!) become incensed at my mention of Cannell, saying, “This is kind of shocking, coming from a board member of the WGAw. Let me get this straight. You favor the economic prospects of individual EMPLOYERS over the economic prospects of individual EMPLOYEES? Cannell the man was a writer. Cannell the company was an employer. As union members, our interests have to first run to the employees, Carleton.”
Well, Craig (why do you keep repeating my name? You sound like my father after I blew the Hemi…or, well, like Peter Bart), since you want to get this straight, this is also a strawman argument. What I said was, “I’ve directly experienced the model of how net neutrality can restore an era of independent production that creates enormous opportunity – and revenue – for writers.” I didn’t say anything about it creating an opportunity for Steve Cannell. The training as a showrunner I received in a writer-owned company, my ability to directly deal with the head of the studio on a daily basis (he wrote freelance scripts for me!) and the enormous number of potential employers among the other independent companies, each with their own creative – and hiring – preferences, created enormous opportunity for me as an employee writer. Why you think I was talking about Steve and not myself, a much more treasured topic – and got so mad about it – escapes me.
While we’re on that topic you say, “let’s be real…the companies that will challenge Fox, Disney, Sony, Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers aren’t internet shops set up by individual writers. It’s the other big monsters out there like Microsoft, Google, Clear Channel, etc. Why? Unlike print media, which…on the internet at least…has the potential for very low-cost production, movies and television shows tend to require serious capital investment.”
Well, yes, other big companies will more easily challenge the studios. (But not even they will be able to enter the market if net-discrimination permits existing distributors to buy protection from the ISPs or simply buy the ISPs.) But do you really, really mean that the next creator of a Blair Witch Project or Open Water or Paranormal Activity shouldn’t even be given the chance to distribute directly? Why?
You also say, “Carleton [why do you keep repeating my name?!], it’s precisely because I think the delivery system is going to get better and better that I worry about the impact of net neutrality. We will be able to download a feature film or television episode in HD in five minutes or less. At that point, why on God’s green earth would we want to limit the ability of the studios to monetize that speed and convenience? That’s our money too!”
This seems to be the point at which you disclose your true, essential argument. Which is that writers ought to cooperate with the existing studios in monopolizing the Internet and then try to obtain a share of the monopoly profits for ourselves.
The problem as I see it is that monopolizing studios won’t bid up our compensation, they’ll more likely engage in consciously parallel efforts – or outright combination – to drive our compensation down. New entrants tend to buy their way into markets – in this case by bidding up the price of talent. If you preclude new entry, you drive prices down.
You assert that the studios “all hate each other and compete viciously for every dollar out there” so we don’t need to worry about a concentrated market place. But I remember when I was producing a 2-hour pilot 17 years ago in Australia and was invited to lunch with the heads of long-form production of most of the major and then mini-major studios to tell them how great Australia was. i calculated that something like 80% of all US TV pilot and MOW production was sitting at the table. They didn’t hate each other. And they might have been competing against each other vigorously in many other ways, but they were perfectly capable of sitting at one table together and discussing how to cut production (and union!) costs by offshoring production. More recently they seem to be doing a pretty good job of mostly cooperating in expanding Hulu and similar services. And when it comes to discussing sharing new revenue with writers, it certainly seemed in the last strike that the studios got along just fine with each other.
In fact, if they really hate each other as you posit, then it would be pretty hard for them to cooperate in forcing the ISPs to price-discriminate against their rivals and share the resulting revenue with the studios. Instead they’d be underbidding each other in front of the ISPs – or excluding each other by buying up ISPs. Your model only works if the studios don’t hate each other, combine to strong-arm the ISPs, and the ISPs can sufficiently dominate access to the Web to extract new revenue.
As your post nears its end, your fundamental argument seems to be that resistance is futile, we’re going to be assimilated by the few remaining studios, and our best hope is to cooperate with them (though actually it’s the ISPs, not the studios we better cooperate with because they’ll be getting the revenue from net-discrimination) in hopes we can get and keep a share of their new monopoly profits.
I simply disagree. I believe that the total output of an economy increases when you have free, perfect markets, that we will be able to command a share of that growing market, that vigorous competition will bid up the price of talent (well, at least your price), that a multiplicity of employers will enhance our bargaining power and discourage combinations against us, and that we’ll all be a lot better off if we wish the old studios and new entrants alike good luck as they compete on a level playing field and create new ways of monetizing the Web.
And yes, the FBI and Interpol really, really, really ought to make good on their gaudy, redundant warnings at the start of our DVDs and actually go out there and arrest some people.
Carleton Eastlake:
I’m certainly not for the banning of individuals from the internet. I have no idea how that would even be practicable. I am, however, completely fine with the notion that internet service providers should be allowed to not carry P2P channels. It’s not people that are being banned. It’s channels. For instance, an ISP could choose to throttle off sites that exist to promote the illegal sharing of movies. There are lots of such sites out there. Why shouldn’t they be blocked off? They exist to promote and facilitate theft.
Now, I also don’t really have an issue if an ISP also wants to choke off all content “inappropriate for minors.” Well, guess what? I think such an ISP would probably be quite useful for elementary school libraries. However, and this is important…there is a free market of ISPs. Why shouldn’t AT&T be allowed to sell a package called Kidsafe Internet that chokes off material most parents would find objectionable for kids? They’re still going to sell a package called Regular Internet that contains all the pr0n you want.
Net neutrality basically makes that impossible to do.
What your “monopoly” concern revolves around is access to alternative ISPs. I don’t know where you live, but I’d be surprised if you didn’t have at least a choice between broadband cable and broadband DSL. Regardless, ISP choice will continue to proliferate. I’m not particularly worried that people will only be able to access the web through MonopolyCorp. And, frankly, it’s bad business for ISP’s to force end users to conform to their limited view of what the internet should be. Remember, this is a country in which big mainstream corporations offer hardcore pornography through cable and satellite, as well as liberal programming, conservative programming, multilingual programming…
There’s no reason to think that they’d be any less liberal in their internet offerings. The threat of competition is always there, and the more people they can please, the more money they make. Also, to be clear, there are already websites that the ISP’s throttle (particularly child pornography).
Assuming the studios wanted to make money under such a model, they wouldn’t give the ISPs a choice. For instance, the studios could work out a structure in which they withhold access to the ISPs who don’t share the additional revenue. It’s actually fairly easy to do. Any given web server can block access by IPs. So the companies could create a movie-rental site that is only accessible by customers of, say, Charter (each ISP has a certain block of IPs they can dole out to users). Charter, in turn, has to kick back a chunk of the surcharge to the companies, or the companies block the Charter IPs and go hawk their wares to AT&T.
I didn’t mean to sound angry, btw. I think I’ve been repeating your name because I like the way it trips off my fingers on the keyboard.
The folks who made Paranormal Activity had a chance to distribute their film on the internet, but they obviously preferred to distribute it along a traditional channel. And why not? That’s where all the money is. Which is kind of my point…shouldn’t we be strengthen the channels that content creators prefer, rather than possibly weakening them in order to keep alive a channel that no one really prefers?
I mean, I love YouTube, but that’s where you upload your farting cat. It’s not where you put a movie.
I don’t get this. The compensation upon which we base our residual formulas isn’t the compensation paid from them to us, it’s the compensation paid by customers to the studios. Frankly, if the studios completely monopolized the entertainment market, it would be the best possible thing for us. It would be outstandingly awesome–in a financial sense. Do you really not think so? Remember the days when there were only three networks, and every episode got at least one network rerun, with all the residuals that went along with that? Or the days when you couldn’t download movies, and people were buying DVD’s in droves at $18 a pop?
Would it suck for the public? Yes. Would it be creatively horrifying? Quite likely. But look, I’m not arguing for a monopoly by this cartel. I’m arguing that we shouldn’t do anything that would weaken the cartel’s long-term sales health.
No, my fundamental argument is that resistance is self-sabotaging, that we can’t be “assimilated by the few remaining studios” because we already work for them, there aren’t any fewer studios than there ever were, and yeah, when you’ve got a percentage of a company’s bottom line, you kinda want them to make as much as possible, right?
There is simply no reason for me to believe that this will occur. Nothing has happened yet to indicate that this will happen. There are plenty of reasons to think that it will not happen. More importantly, you’re not simply asking for faith in the unlikely. You’re asking us for a faith that could damage the health of the system that actually pays us now, provides us with health insurance now, and provides us with a pension now.
That’s where you and I must agree to part.
Respectfully,
C.
Your position, while seemingly reasonable Craig, is built on the assumption that the industry shape should remain the same. As a producer of primarily indie features, I look at projects like Jamie King’s VODO and the DIY distribution of films like SITA SINGS THE BLUES. Your proposal to hand over arbitration of download speeds to companies like Verizon and Time Warner means ensuring that independent artists remain out in the cold. Why would Time Warner allow these artist’s work to come over their pipes if they could, instead, throttle that content in favor of work they have a greater profit incentive for. Your position on this Craig is basically saying to independent artists that unless they sign up with a major studio that audiences shouldn’t have the same access to their work.
I also submit that you are being woefully optimistic about how that tiered revenue would work for you, the content creator. If you think that tiered pricing will see a penny trickling down to writers then you are dreaming. That money will disappear at the distribution level, without a shadow of a doubt.
I am mildly opposed to Net Neutrality legislation for legal reasons (I think it is potentially an unfair restriction on commerce) and I think that companies that choose to create walled gardens of preferred content will ultimately shrink and die under market pressure. We all forget, we’ve seen this before.
AOL once believed that they knew what parts of the internet we would like best and chose to give that, and only that, to us. Then upstart service providers came along and offered people open pipes to any content they wanted.
We know who won that war.
“I am, however, completely fine with the notion that internet service providers should be allowed to not carry P2P channels.”
Define P2P channels technically (in terms that a network engineer can implement) in such a way as not to overlap with e-mail (which is content carried via specific protocols – i.e. traffic structure – on whatever port chooses to listen), web traffic (ditto) or other “legitimate” traffic. (Port 80, 443, 25, etc. are all conventions that aren’t required for successful cooperating traffic.)
The only way I’m aware of to do this is to inspect traffic structure and shape … and if the traffic is carried via SSL (which can be done peer-to-peer as well, since client certificates have been a reality for years now) … then that’s impossible.
If the ISPs are legally allowed to inspect traffic by semi-arbitrary criteria at their whim, they don’t need a specific warrant for your traffic … and neither does the FBI or other government agency; they can get a warrant for AT&T and get yours and everybody else’s traffic.
Consider the intersection of that on voice-over-IP businesses, or the movement of cell phone calls onto the Internet from the providers. Now any ISP can inspect your phone calls without a warrant and the government can compel them for those records.
Is there any reason that ISPs not owned by a major studio wouldn’t band together and demand free, cheap access to the content anyway? If the studios can band together to distribute content, why do you think the ISP ultimate owners wouldn’t do the same? They’re bigger than the entertainment companies and already used to organizing to deal with this sort of issue.
In short, I’m pretty sure that the technological reality of the solution you propose cannot possibly be as restricted as you might wish.
I would much rather see the existing content-creation structure get ripped apart by the starving writers and greedy studios and do without movies for a while than let that industry put regulatory authority over the future of information into the hands of a couple of companies who will be incented to screw us all over anyway, including them.
to Subrata’s point:
In addition to the technical challenges you point out (which are entirely correct) there are P2P technologies which are used for entirely legitimate purposes. For example Skype. Unlike most chat clients which are administered through centralized servers, Skype is built P2P. That is why, when you log on, you sometimes don’t see the online status of everyone at once since different users on the network will have information about different members of your address book.
Should Skype be throttled despite being P2P? If the answer is “no” then how do we draw the line?
Without taking any positions on the underlying disagreement, I will merely note that the day after the Oscars my wife and I decided to download/watch The Hurt Locker from DirecTV On Demand at 1080p (DirecTVs On Demand is internet based, even tho it downloads to the DVR).
It took about 20 hours to accomplish that. We ended up watching (the very excellent) movie in three “tranches”. Aside from the obvious, this actually put us a little at financial risk. DirecTV’s agreement for “on demand” is that once you begin watching the movie, you have 24 hrs to complete watching it.
We actually ending up mutually scheduling a lunch hour on the second day to complete the viewing within the 24hr window from when we started.
This, mind you, was the day after the Oscars, when reason suggests a whole lot of folks were out searching for awarded performances/films. For comparison, a few days later I downloaded/watched another 1080p movie from DirecTV On Demand and got it in 3-4 hours. I believe that DirecTV’s network and the ISPs bogged down under the load, and at least moderately inconvenienced us as a result.
nmh:
With all due respect to my fellow writers who work outside of the studio system, I don’t. I work within it. The WGAw is designed primarily to represent writers who work within the studio system. The vast majority of the WGAw’s financial resources are derived from writers who work within the studio system. Our pension and health is funded by the studios.
So yeah, my opinion is that the WGAw should be more concerned with promoting those of us who work within the studio system. Sure.
I don’t have to wonder if I’ll ever see a penny of profit. My union, the DGA and SAG have deals granting us a percentage of the gross. We will take the companies to legal arbitration, and I believe we’ll win. If I cede the notion that we can ever collect on our deals, then at that point the union’s useless anyway, so it’s all shot to hell and we can collectively stop caring. Considering that the WGAw collects over a quarter of a BILLION dollars in residuals each year, I think you’re being woefully pessimistic, but hey…to each his own.
Subrata Sircar:
I think you’re probably overthinking this. Blocking the big torrent search engine sites would be a decent place to start. You don’t have to close ports and so forth.
Why would ISP’s band together? That makes no sense. Far more logical to cut deals with major content providers in order to kill your competition…because if you don’t, some new guy will.
I bet you would. Since I make my living as a professional screenwriter, however, I don’t have the luxury of burning the town down. You’re right about one thing…if all writers were starving, it would definitely make sense.
I see your point, Craig, but I don’t for a second think that indie producers aren’t going to get majorly screwed on this. If an ISP has speed and access to give, it’s not going to give it to something that will generate a smaller profit for it. At best we’ll get some kind of hackneyed “Indie Channel” system that’ll be designed for “indie” stuff that, while low budget, is hardly that low budget.
The problem with both sides of this is that it comes down to people fighting for whatever pennies they feel entitled to. I know you work for the studio system and so you don’t particularly care how it affects anyone else, but from the viewpoint of someone who doesn’t, your position generates a feeling of, “Yeah, but you already make a living at this, as it exists. Don’t fight for the pipes to close for people trying to forge a new way to make one.”
Again, I see your point, but members of the guild are fighting for more money on this. Not for a shot at a career in general.
This could result in the studio system being the only avenue, and that won’t be good.
Craig, your point of view rests on the assumption that, when it comes to net neutrality, the WGA should only consider, “Which side of this debate will make more money for our members”.
That assumption creates faulty logic. The WGA does not exist for the soul purpose of ensuring its members receive the largest paychecks possible.
The WGA exists to protect the creative rights of its members. The guild was founded for several reasons; one of which was take control away from the studios and give it to the writers.
You are wrong to generalize and declare that when a writer jumps on the internet it is to “get rich quick”. Many of us (arguably most of us) have jumped online, because it offers us a distribution channel where we have more rights, and even total control of our art. Most importantly, though, it currently offers us a level playing field among all other content providers.
You smirk right now and say “farting cats”. I retort and point to web shows like “The Guild” and “Red Vs. Blue”. There is an oncoming flood, and the dam will crack the moment your DVR is able to list web series right alongside your favorite network shows. That is not the distant future, that is a software upgrade.
But this will not happen to our best advantage if net neutrality is lost. To be distributed, we will need to relinquish our control to those who control the bandwidth.
By protecting net neutrality, the WGA is protecting our creative rights. It is protecting our control. The WGA is doing its job, because the WGA is about more things than just money.
Craig, at the top of your blog you state we as writers should aspire to be artful. In this case, though, it seems you are only aspiring to be well paid.
I’ve been advocating taking down the big p2p sites for years. It’s a disgrace that there isn’t a legal framework in place to allow us to do that without beating on little guys or putting big ISPs who are being abused by a small number of their users at risk too.
In my estimation from talking to my uber geek friends over the years, there are maybe 10 sites world-wide that provide the access point for north of 50% of all the illegal downloads. It’s a disgrace those 10 sites can’t be “kept on the run” so far as making them change IP address and URL on a regular basis in whack-a-mole fashion.
No, that won’t end 100% of the problem, but it will cut it down to a manageable size, like illegal VHS duplication was in the ’70s and ’80s.
IMO, a large part of the problem is what I call the reverse corollary of “broken window policing”. You recall that theory, used with much success in NYC to clean up problem areas. If a neighborhood starts looking like no one cares, the blight quickly accelerates.
With these big p2p tracker search engines, it’s exactly the opposite –becuase they are so big, well-run, friendly, efficient, and with their own helpful communities, it is easy enough for joe public to think he’s not doing anything wrong in visiting them and partaking of their wares. Get them on the run, make them the equivalent of a digital red-light district that even if you manage to keep finding it as it moves, and far fewer people will have anything to do with it.
In my opinion, it’s not the underlying technology that is the problem. There are valid uses for p2p. It’s these giant tracker link aggregator sites that are 90%+ nothing but illegal downloads.
Andrew:
Look up the word “artful.”
Yes, I think the WGAw is best at getting us paid. It’s neither effective nor, frankly, required, to help us be independent.
But to your point Craig, you are saying not that “it’s best at getting us paid” but, rather, “it’s function should be to ensure those of us who are paid the most continue to be paid the most. If you don’t make as much as me then the Union should be less interested in your opportunities.”
Is the function of a union primarily to help maintain the lifestyle of those who are best off in the union or to ensure that those who are most in need of defense in the union have that defense. Your argument is the former.
By that logic SAG should only do what is in the interest of the top 5% (the WGAw probably the same) since they provide the vast lion’s share of the money to the union – heck, why even bother with covering background actors? I guess I’m surprised to hear that the Union should only support the interests of those who pay it the most in residuals.
I understand your point of view and certainly why it makes sense to you. I respect it. I guess it’s just interesting to hear that the union should prioritize the interests the wealthiest parts of its membership.
In the context of this argument, why should the WGA have it’s low-budget agreements at all?
nmh:
Not at all. Not sure how you got that.
My argument is that anyone earning a minimum as part of a Guild job deserves to be defended by the Guild. AND my argument is that virtually all of those people currently work for the studios. AND my argument is that the day any of those people start their own internet production company, they’re no longer someone the Guild must defend for, but rather defend against, because they’ll be employers.
It’s not rich vs. poor. It’s employees vs. employers. Or, I suppose…professional studio writers vs. independent non-studio writers.
Presumably the guild doesn’t have anything like the Self Employment Tax, right? If you’re really a one man shop working for yourself and collecting revenues directly from the public, that revenue stream is entirely outside the guild’s purview?
What about the writer who receives points beyond basic residuals? They should now be considered someone to defend against as well, no? They are now a part of the production entity with an ongoing profit interest in the work that is in line with the producers (employers) and now should be treated as such.
You carve out an interesting role for the WGA with the following criteria for union support:
1) You must work with studios.
2) You must not have an ownership interest in your work.
Again, there is a logic to that position it just seems to narrow the role of the union and ensure that up and coming writers will likely want nothing to do with it until they’ve signed (an increasingly elusive) studio deal.
It reminds me a bit about one of the old problems with union leadership. Union leaders generally should prefer to have union members fired than to ever see their benefits cut. Why? Well if you are fired from a job then you will eventually (probably in short order in many industries) drop out of the union because you can’t afford your dues. Once you’ve dropped out you can’t vote the leadership out of their positions. However if you have your benefits cut then you stay in the union but are angry and will vote people out. Therefore the unions favor less inclusion and outsized benefits over protecting more workers. This has been one of the conundrums of the auto industry and, it would seem, potentially of the film industry.
Also, I put the question back to you, since you say “professional studio writers vs. independent non-studio writers” – what then is the point of the low budget agreements?
There is a distinction between unions and professional associations (like, say, the American Medical Association). Some seem to want WGA to act like a professional association. Craig is pointing out that it isn’t.
Well, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America would probably be a more comfortable fit for professional association vs union here.
Dictionary digs? Really?
So you fault me for assuming you meant “done with or characterized by art or skill” instead of “slyly crafty or cunning; deceitful; tricky”. Either way, none of the definitions refer to “bein’ all ’bout the benjamins”.
What the WGA is “best at” and “what it exists for” are separate matters.
Yes, I agree we’re talking de facto vs. status quo, but your logic still doesn’t hold up based on what the WGA technically states it exists for.
I’ll toss this out there too. For the baby writers coming into the industry, the internet is looking more and more attractive, which in turn makes the studios appear less important, or more specifically “not worth the effort”. If the WGA does not cater to the needs of its incoming blood (independent needs such as net neutrality instead of minimum payments) its relevance will deteriorate. The studio writers will always be the minority, but within your lifetime it could be those internet kids who begin bringing in most of the money. Perhaps it’s in your own self interest to provide those kids with a reason to join, even if they have no interest in being a studio player like yourself.
Can they even legally join WGA if that’s their model and they stick to it, never working for a WGA signatory? It’s the mixing of contexts here, in the assumption that every writer might well wear multiple hats over his career, that I think is getting us in trouble in this conversation.
If three young writer buddies who hate having a boss, and vow to never have one, start a internet program where they are the only three writers, and each owns 1/3rd of the show, are they eligible to join WGA?
Craig – {I think something’s broken in the iCarly comments – the number of comments has stopped growing and my response about cake never posts although the comment app reports any attempt to try again is creating a duplicate post. I think your post about the cake industry ended the meal like any good desert should! So I’ll repeat it here since we’re on the same topic. But feel free to delete or move this where you will.}
AN IMPORTANT POINT that didn’t occur to me until now: as best I recall (I don’t want to research the fine points tonight, consult your own legal counsel) it is a serious violation of Federal law for a labor union under the camouflage of a collective bargaining agreement to combine with an employer to competitively disadvantage its business rivals. I know that isn’t exactly what you were proposing, but if the WGA showed too much enthusiasm for aiding the established studios to dominate the Internet to the disadvantage of potential rivals…that could be a serious civil or criminal violation of the antitrust laws for both the WGA and the favored, conspiring studios.
BUT SPEAKING OF SUPERMARKETS AND CAKE from the iCarly topic below…Actually I am more concerned about a different hypothetical than one set in the highly competitive, efficient supermarket market (which in part is so competitive because of earlier enforcement actions under the antitrust laws, including laws prohibiting price discrimination by suppliers). I’m worried that the modern Internet could become too much like the railroads in their early days. To make what I hope is a fair-use quote from http://countrystudies.us/united-states/history-73.htm :
“Railroads became increasingly important to the expanding nation, and unfair railroad practices proliferated. Rail lines extended cheaper rates to large shippers by rebating a portion of the charge, operated to the disadvantage of small shippers. Also, some railroads charged arbitrarily higher rates to some shippers than to others between certain points, regardless of distance.
“Moreover, while competition held down freight charges between cities with several rail connections, rates were excessive between points served by only one line. Thus it cost less to ship goods 1,280 kilometers from Chicago to New York than to places a few hundred kilometers from Chicago. And by joint action to avoid competition — pooling — rival companies divided the freight business according to a prearranged scheme that placed the total earnings in a common fund for distribution.
“Popular resentment at these practices stimulated state efforts at regulation. These had some effect, but the problem was national in character and demanded congressional action.
“In 1887 President Grover Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act, which forbade excessive charges, pools, rebates and rate discrimination, and created an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to guard against violations of the act.”
It’s pretty much the same dynamic – discrimination by a new-technology common-carrier. It helped give birth to the antitrust laws, led to an era of comprehensive regulation, etc., etc. There’s plenty of historical lessons to learn there. We probably all ought to be reading an economic history of the era.
You do know that the Guild is legally entitled to 1.5% of all income a writer derives from employment under the MBA, right? Including residuals, which are calculated against gross, and including any above-minimum gross points a writer may receive?
So I guess, by your logic, that means the Guild should be defending writers against the Guild, what with the Guild being part of the production entity and having an ongoing gross — not profit, gross – interest in the in the work and all.
-Ted
Well yes, Ted, that’s right. I admit it’s a bit of a reductio ad absurdum argument but it does point to a logic question. If you are participating at an ownership level then how are you not an owner? Craig stated:
But you are saying that if the writer is participating as a writer and paying the guild then they should be protected by the guild. How do you draw the distinction? A writer has an ownership interest which means they should not be treated as a writer because they are an owner of an entity which is employing people but they should be protected by the guild because they are earning residuals for the guild. I feel like something here begs the question.
Isn’t “covered work” the real answer? Unions like to talk about representing the interests of their members, but really that’s not quite right. Its representing the interest of their members while those members are doing covered work (and in trying to create more covered work for them to do). Beyond that point the union is moving into “professional association” territory –to the degree there is no conflict between the two, no problem. When the legally required and regulated “union” bit comes into conflict with the “professional association” voluntary responsibility, the union bit has to win.
What I perceive Craig to be arguing upstream is that he has detected a conflict between the union role and the PA role and he hopes to cause the leadership to have a palm-to-forehead moment when they recognize it, and resolve it in favor of the union role. Because any time they do recognize such a conflict it is very clear it must be resolved that way.
Carleton (and some others) are arguing the conflict does not exist here between union and PA roles, so needs no resolving in favor of the union role.
“I think you’re probably overthinking this. Blocking the big torrent search engine sites would be a decent place to start. You don’t have to close ports and so forth.”
I see three problems with that:
a. Who are you asking to block the site?
1. If you’re asking the government to order/”suggest” to ISPs that they block it, then you end up in a maze of legal arguments as soon as the site demonstrates that some percentage of their content is legally distributable … which it will be in short order, if it isn’t today … and the block is ineffectual. (At least, without China-level controls over the Internet within the host country.)
2. If you’re asking the ISPs to collectively block out access to certain sites, then the ISPs are liable for various other actions (they can’t legally block access without court orders, and if they can, then why don’t they block access to this porn site, or anti-Obama site, or …)
b. “Torrent search engine sites” are a convenience not a necessity. (geo above argues that the big aggregators are reassuring, which might be true, but they’re not technically necessary.) As long as Google, Bing and Yahoo index the Internet, and “anonymous” file servers exist, blocking big torrent-host sites won’t help. If I want to illegally distribute content, I can construct a torrent file for the content and upload the torrent to several different file servers (lots and lots of servers allow non-authenticated upload and subsequent download), then leave my machine connected to seed the file. A few hours later, several other copies of the seed exist and are providing the actual bits. The torrent files themselves are hosted from perfectly legitimate sites and can’t be distinguished from legal files without actual content inspection. The bits flowing are doing so over peer-to-peer connections and can’t be blocked or even inspected without draconian ISP policy, so there’s nothing to block.
Now, it might be that geo’s point is valid, that getting cease-and-desist orders for http://www.torrentsearch.com and friends (and successfully navigating the legal maelstrom that ensues) will drive enough customers-who-want-to-do-the-right-thing away from downloading movies. It didn’t work for music piracy, but maybe this is different. (One difference is that it seems easier to justify downloading something which is airing for free on your TV right now, but that probably works the other way.)
I wouldn’t bet on it, though.
I agree the legal framework to do what I want to do effectively does not exist today. It needs to be created. If you’re going to play whack-a-mole, you need to be able to react quickly, but still have appropriate due process appeals (also processed quickly), protect little guys, and protect big guys who aren’t responsible for what a few of their users are doing. I think such a framework could be developed and survive constitutional challenge if done well. You probably need a separate court to deal with it, staffed with judges who are subject matter expert and that’s all they do.
nmh –
Gross point participation does not give a writer (or an actor or a director or anyone) any ownership stake in the copyright in either the literary intellectual property (story, screenplay, teleplay, etc) used in the motion picture, or in the motion picture itself — and certainly not in the production company that financed the picture, and actually does own the copyrights.
Writers who work under Guild jurisdiction are employees. The way you know that is, if they were not employees for the purposes of federal law (the National Labor Relation Act), then they would not be working under Guild jurisdiction.
When an employee creates a work of authorship in the course of his/her employment, federal law (the work-made-for hire provisions of the U.S. copyright code this time) recognizes the employer as the legal author and owner of the copyright in the work.
So the very fact that someone writes a screenplay (or a teleplay or a webisode script or etc.) that is subject to Guild jurisdiction means that he/she has no legal claim to ownership of that screenplay, or any work derived from or that incorporates that screenplay, like a motion picture.
Any compensation he/she receives — regardless of the nature of that compensation — is income derived from employment.
Not ownership.
If someone owns the copyright in their screenplay or in the motion picture produced from the screenplay, then it means that he/she was neither an employee of a production company, or an independent contractor commissioned by a production company. It means he/she is the producer — in the “Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers” sense of the word, not the “associate producer” sense.
This is pretty fundamental stuff that should already be known to anyone who is seriously arguing about what the Guild should or shouldn’t do.
-Ted
nmh:
Ted’s explained it quite well, so I’ll just boil it down to its essence.
The WGAw has no legal stance to represent and collectively bargain for anyone who is not an employee. It’s a labor union. If you own your copyright, the MBA does not apply to you. It cannot, nor should it.
Just wanted to thank all parties involved for this really interesting discussion. And Craig, you’ve pretty much changed the mind of this WGA member about the issue.
Craig, I think you have a very narrow view of the internet and of net neutrality.
As far as the technical issues involved in blocking the file sharing, I think that’s a losing battle. The technology is quickly moving to decentralization, encryption, and deniability and I don’t think the IP holders are ever going to be able to prevent that, unless the laws really do change to give serious authority to the ISPs. I don’t think that will happen for other reasons (such as right to privacy).
This whole discussion makes me sad; the internet is the greatest thing that’s happened in my generation and I think it would be a tragic step backwards if it turned into cable tv.
Austin:
If I were a consumer of movies and film, instead of an author, I’m quite certain I’d agree with you.
Hey Craig!
You know me well enough that we may stipulate for the court, I make my living off the studio system. We’ll leave indie producers out of this, since they give you hives (joking, but I think we can agree you don’t consider them valid participants in a WGA oriented discussion. And I’m more than willing to admit they muddy the waters.)
First off, pull out piracy. No, seriously, the way you’re describing how piracy will be stopped doesn’t work that way. Aside from the technical issues, we already know, from actual real-world current policies, that piracy will be prosecuted on the consumer side of the equation. Personally I think that’s a separate, dangerous precedent, since you really shouldn’t give businesses enforcement powers. But, basically, given the choice between a.) chasing down pirate IP’s and b.) just nailing anybody who’s bandwidth is suspiciously funky … we know how that’s going to play out. (Enjoy arguing you should get your internet back after your ISP decides that your Skype calls to Grandma are really pirate downloads.)
There are other issues re: piracy, but that just mucks up this discussion, which is: should WGA writers who work in the studio system support net neutrality or not?
I’m on my way to Portland to shoot, so I’ll do a longer answer later. But I think you’re kind of seriously confusing ISPs and content providers, a big distinction (that may only exist for now, but let’s stay on target.) And, no offense, but you’re way, way off the reservation on how you define your terms and how, say, the EFF defines its terms.
When we’re discussing net neutrality, we’re not talking consumers having the choice on the ISP side between fast and slow downloads. Or say, the availability of a dirty-ISP blocking “Kidzone”, using your example. That sort of tiered service is both widely available and a natural outgrowth of of the free market (and for the Kidzone example, more easily and efficiently done on the browser side). Yet you keep referring back to that as one of the issues. That has nothing to do with net neutrality.
Net neutrality is about making sure that ISP’s can’t extort money out of content providers in order to assure they’re not throttled. Leaving aside the search engine ramifications, other businesses (we are, after all, legitimately but selfishly discussing a world-wide infrastructure only in terms that affect the oh, 5000 of us) you’ve kind of reversed the implied power dynamic in the discussion.
Look at this argument, for example:
“they wouldn’t give the ISPs a choice. For instance, the studios could work out a structure in which they withhold access to the ISPs who don’t share the additional revenue. It’s actually fairly easy to do. Any given web server can block access by IPs. So the companies could create a movie-rental site that is only accessible by customers of, say, Charter (each ISP has a certain block of IPs they can dole out to users). Charter, in turn, has to kick back a chunk of the surcharge to the companies, or the companies block the Charter IPs and go hawk their wares to AT&T.”
Yes, that’s exactly who was in the power position when Cablevision threatened not to broadcast the Oscars for ABC.
(BTW, that phrase “additional revenues” is pretty nebulous. How do you define those additional revenues? Off what baseline? And sure, those ISP’s will be just as honest about reporting revenues as the studios are …)
In your theoretical free market, ABC pulls its content from Cable Company A, and the audience says “Hell, if you don’t get ABC back, I’m going to switch to Cable Company B, which provides me with quick easy access to ABC programs.” Cable Company A says “We don’t want to lose those customers, so here’s some of the additional revenues, ABC!”
In the real world, ABC pulls its content from Cable Company A. The Customers of Cable Company A say “Man, I lost ABC. Changing Cable companies is a pain. I WILL BITCH FOR FIVE MINUTES, THEN WATCH SOMETHING ELSE.” And they will.
Of course, the studios could band together and hit each ISP as a group. At some point, somebody’s going to call their bluff, and the TV companies will not provide new content for the people who use that ISP (this all, of course, only works in a post-broadcast world.) Never mind the brutal hit from advertisers that would incur, we’ve deprived the audience of new content before. It was called a strike. You did not like it. And when the companies return from that pseudo-strike, they will find — as happens after every content, er, “down-time” — even more of the audience has drifted away from their content. (video game producers would, on the other hand, love the studios to make this choice)
We’re not even going to get into whether your theoretical “pressure” would also involve VOD from third party providers like iTunes, Netflix, or Amazon.
The more likely scenario we’ll be facing in the near future is that, say, some giant cable internet provider buys, oh, Universal. It then decides to give a sweetheart internal deal to its Universal/NBC proxy to provide fat pipe for Universal shows to download, while it slows down the pipe for, say, Viacomm products unless they cough up.
So what does Viacomm do? Cut deals with all the other content ISPs? Well, they could, but most Americans have a far more limited choice for internet providers than you seem to think (the general consensus from the GAO report back in 2005 and recent studies show that most Americans have about two choices. Which is, unless I’m high, the bare minimum allowed to use the word “choice”)
SOMEBODY OWNS THOSE CABLES. They are physical things. If you ain’t laying cable, you’re pushing data over a phone line, and those upgrades are going slowly and dominated by one or two major phone providers like AT&T. (see the link below) In this scenario, Viacomm probably buys its own ISP, or gets into the distribution system … or pays more for access to that 15% of the population, and their profits are cut … which is the same monetization issue you were so concerned about back higher on the page. The Guild-protected NBC writers, in that case, are aces, while the Guild-protected ABC writers are boned. This would in theory spiral us back toward a network model, but with the added complication that the networks aren’t broadcasting on free nationwide airwaves, but on diverse systems that vary widely in quality and availability across the nation’s geography …
… Maybe. I’m still not sure how you’re linking fast/tiered internet speeds to a higher piece of the pie for our internet share. I’m just going by what appears to be your argument.
I mean, the money the studios are really sharing from streaming is either
a.) VOD – in which case you want all the studios to be able to dump as much dumb data down the pipe as fast as possible to as many customers as possible, in which case you favor net neutrality.
b.) advertising-revenue based, just like old model TV. In which case you want more eyeballs on the streaming shows, meaning all the studios need their shows to be seen as quickly and conveniently as possible, as consistently as possible, by as many people in as many markets as you can manage … in which case you favor net neutrality.
You appear to be arguing for:
c.) get rid of net neutrality because of some hypothetical power/profit sharing model that may occur in the future but runs counter to everything we now know about the internet distribution model.
Gotta say, c.) seems a little thin.
Networks aren’t streaming shows for free right now because the ISPs aren’t kicking back enough money. They’re streaming shows for free because that money doesn’t matter to them yet, because there are still other, bigger revenue streams out there.
Right now, the entire distribution/content provider equation is in massive flux, and until it stabilizes we won’t know what the right monetization model is. UNTIL THAT POINT, the best bet for all people who make money because somebody else shows their work to as many other humans as possible is to make sure there’s a level playing field for all those distributors. THAT’S what net neutrality is.
I think it boils down to where you and I believe the power balance lies. As a stalwart (and I do not mean that as an insult) studio man, you see it as belonging to the giant content providing and distributing companies you already work for, and a status quo you feel very comfortable with. As an infrastructure gear-head, I believe those giant companies are about to get seriously boned by the humans who own the pipes.
If you want to read up on the last-mile hardware issues and its effects on both the markets and our audience’s ability to stream our product in a new medium, you cold do worse than to start here.
John:
Always good to hear from you.
We’ll agree to disagree on piracy. Comcast is already throttling torrents, but let’s put that aside as you say.
Yes, that’s my understanding of it as well, so we actually are on the same page.
This is probably inevitable, yes.
Well, if we assume that the companies don’t form a solid online bargaining group (which is pretty much what the MPAA is designed for), then yeah, we could end up in a situation where content providers start merging with distribution providers (ISPs), in the way that they did once fin-syn died, and production companies started merging with networks. In that case, though, it seems likely that no one is going to be without a dance partner. Universal ends up with Cablevision, Time-Warner ends up with…well, they’re already there, Disney/ABC cuts a deal with, I dunno…AT&T probably…and so on, and so forth.
Unless VOD could bring a premium for even faster service…
Now, I get that you think this is counter to everything we know about the internet distribution model, but everything we know about the internet distribution model…to date…tells us that we’re going to get massively boned.
As writers.
Personally, I don’t know where it’s going to end up. I think the smart money is sitting back and waiting. The studios, for instance, have flailed around a bit with various models and theories, but they don’t know if Hulu should be free, should charge per view, should be a subscription, should exist at all…
Meanwhile, net neutrality might be good for us, and it might be bad for us. I suspect bad, you suspect good…the larger point is that neither of us knows. Maybe we should be careful.
This is from a statement signed by the DGA, SAG, AFTRA and IATSE.
That’s a hedgey statement if I’ve ever read one. This piece is my hedge to go along with it. I’m not saying we should be throwing money out there necessarily to fight against NN. I’m just saying that maybe we should figure out for sure which end of this gun is going to go off before we pull the trigger.
I’ll read your link. Thanks. My education continues…
John Rogers–
“Personally I think that’s a separate, dangerous precedent, since you really shouldn’t give businesses enforcement powers.”
There is an international convention being negotiated right now (unfortunately, at the moment I’m blanking on the name for your convenient googling –hopefully somebody will provide it) that seems to be headed in this direction.
The way it seems to be headed is to provide ISPs a legal “safe harbor” against aiding and abetting piracy charges if they engage in certain intrusive behaviors re their customers to attempt to ensure those customers aren’t engaging in piracy.
I’m not comfortable with that. Government incentivizing businesses to do something that government can’t do itself to enforce laws because of the usual legal due process protections strikes me as highly illegitimate.
We might be headed there, however.
And yes, if Comcast/NBCU goes thru, the political balance of power may start to shift as ISPs have more “skin in the game” re limiting piracy.
Edit: Ah. Google “ACTA leaks” and you’ll find what I’m referring to above.
Craig: “We’ll agree to disagree on piracy. Comcast is already throttling torrents, but let’s put that aside as you say.”
And they’ve settled one lawsuit already (for a token sum, true, but that’s precedent, and it includes a stop-that-order):
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/comcast-throws-16-million-at-p2p-throttling-settlement.ars
Put another way, Comcast now cannot do what you want, without violating the settlement terms, which not only re-opens the lawsuit but provides grounds for summary judgement against them.
Amusingly enough, if AT&T starts throttling torrents, then Comcast can now get more customers …
Subrata Sircar:
They can’t legally do it yet.
My larger point was that the thing that John says they can’t do is something that they actually can do.
Comcast wasn’t throttling torrents because of any lofty concern over the IPR of others.
Comcast was throttling torrents because in an “all you can eat” competitive environment, a relatively small portion of their users were putting too much pressure on their backbone and slowing stuff down for other users and/or adding more cost for Comcast to avoid them slowing stuff down for other users.
If Comcast swallows NBCU, their view on these things may change, and with it their political lobbying efforts.
And if that deal goes thru, don’t tell yourself it will be the last marriage of content and pipes, even further changing the political balance of power.
The logic of Craig’s position in the last two articles ought to make him an advocate of Comcast/NBCU merger.
So let me ask (and if you said previously, le oops). Are you, Craig?
geo:
Without offering an opinion on your opinion, I’ll just say that I only brought it up to point out that it was, factually, possible.
Really nice article and great comments.
Does this mean I should give up on ever seeing the frelling Farscape webisodes?
DC Court of Appeals rules against FCC’s ability to regulate “Net Neutrality” without specific license from Congress:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20001825-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20