No one can say they couldn’t have seen it coming: there is significant collateral damage in the content industry’s war against pirates. In the meantime, the copyright lobby is beginning to target technical intermediaries such as the DNS resolver Quad9 or the hoster Uberspace – and is thus sawing through the foundations of the Internet. The actual problem of the film and music industry is quite different: these “pirates” still have the better product.
In over 15 years in the heise online newsroom, Volker Briegleb has seen quite a few trends come and go. Not sure if the internet or Hertha BSC is the biggest disappointment of his life.
There’s that one track that suddenly disappears from your favorite playlist. And then another. A whole album. The television series that is only available in SD and German. The other series that doesn’t even exist in streaming. Buy the DVD! The movie you can’t be sure will bring your preferred language and subtitle choices. Makes 5 euros.
The original sin: Napster
Almost a quarter of a century after a certain Shawn Fanning founded Napster and thus opened Pandora’s box, the music and film industries (and publishers too) are still fighting against the illegal distribution of their products on the Internet. That is their right – and many of the “offers” successfully concluded by the judiciary in recent years can simply be described as criminal. It’s a Sisyphus job: Successes like the one against Kino.to fizzle out quickly, X follows Z.
Over the years, the industry itself has been reluctant to improve its offering. The “disruption” came from outside: Napster, iTunes, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon. This created new dependencies. Nothing works in the music industry today without Spotify. One of the side effects of the brave new world of streaming is that large labels and superstars have benefited above average from the distribution key for streaming income.
But at least: the valley of tears is crossed. In 2021, the music industry achieved more sales than in 1999 for the first time. For 2022, 26.2 billion US dollars will be booked – more than ever before. The film and television industry is a bit behind and still looking for redemption. One thing can be said for sure: that every Klitsche sends its own streaming service into the competition will not be the solution.
Lesson One from the Stringer Bell School of Business. The picture is on the Internet, the question of rights with such a screenshot: Complicated.
(Image: HBO)
“Product, motherfuckers. Product.” Managers in the industry should also write lesson one of the “Stringer Bell School of Business” behind their ears: The product has to be right. You have to admit that it’s not always easy for them either: the rights landscape for music, films, series, subtitles, language versions and everything else is incredibly fragmented.
Sometimes no one knows who owns the rights anymore. Other rights mold in any insolvency proceedings. Some films or series involve a not inconsiderable financial risk, for example when the pop music soundtrack has to be re-licensed. Or a studio cannot show its own series on its own streaming service because someone else has the first rights.
This confusing situation then affects the customer as described. Suddenly something is missing, is somewhere else or wasn’t there at all. I don’t even want to start here with the dead ends that technical digital rights management can lead to.
But can politics do anything about it? Can she. But according to relevant experience, she should better leave it alone. Sure, the political intervention in the marketing of sports rights has ensured more competition – on the market for sports rights. The rights holders are happy about that. Contrary to all protestations, fans can now subscribe to two or three providers if they want to see all the games of their favorite club live. Nobody could have guessed that!
The industry could tackle its own structural problems. At the moment, however, it looks more like it will expand the war of displacement against illegal competition. The content lobby is increasingly targeting innocent market participants who should be legally protected from such attacks – for damn good reasons.
But the latest lawsuits against hoster Uberspace and DNS service provider Quad9 show that the content lobby is – without batting an eyelid – laying the ax on the foundations of the Internet. And the judiciary, whose frightening cluelessness in technical matters is not noticed here for the first time, provides assistance. One can only hope that these proceedings will end differently in the final instance. The industry, meanwhile, might question its priorities. Product, motherfuckers. product.
(vbr)
