By Dr.Chris A. Heidelberg III, Publisher & Producer
This article was an email that I sent to John Murrell of Goodmorning Silicon Valley. John took a courageous stand by suggesting that he hopes the newspaper industry does not succeed in discouraging fair use which has been severely damaged since the DMCA of 1998. I suggested that the DMCA and the Telecomm Act of 1996 with its deregulatory approach created media companies that were not only too big to fail, but they were too big to be true watchdogs of the republic and the result was a Congress that did not read these laws in too many cases and a Congress and a Presidential Administration that has worked in concert to consciously or consciously to weaken free speech rights,
The Internet is the one true hope to shine light on these issues but it is being attacked by dying industries, like the music and print media industries, that continue to operate with a 19th century model instead of working with companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft that are utilizing a 21 century business model. The Associated Press and other print outlets are leading a copyright campaign that closely resembles the dreaded RIAA and MPAA campaign of suing customers. Instead of creating a better mousetrap they are suing to get the horse back in the barn that can never fit the horse again. His response will follow my email that I sent yesterday.
John, I loved your story today and I know that it takes a lot of courage to disagree with the boss. The real problem of media consolidation is in part why we are in this poor transition period. Once you get a bunch of conglomerates owning more than 7-7-7 or 12-12-12 the result is that we have the news and editorial policy being in the hands of increasingly fewer folks who often have short-term thinking and profits in mind. The 1918 ruling will not help them when they essentially abandoned it by allowing links and re-posting for years before this uprising by the AP within the past 2 years. Fair use will not die under the Obama Administration because of the fact that he was a Constitutional scholar.If these folks had thought about making bloggers affiliates who can assist them in generating traffic, this would be a smarter model and it would enable them to spread their advertisers out to the micro-level.
Newspapers should consider themselves social businesses in the model of Muhammad
Yunus' Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. We really need great reporting and logically written editorials regardless of the viewpoint. The real problem is one of ideology. We made a decision nearly more than 30 years ago that capitalism is more important than the democracy and it has wounded both capitalism and democracy. If the press had been doing its job and critiqued the former administration as it is justifiably critiquing this administration maybe just maybe we would be in a better economic position because we would have some of the money spent in the war in Iraq to bailout ordinary Americans, small businesses and yes the newspaper industry. The newspaper industry is paramount to the future of the republic, and if the industry
does not learn how to partner with the online companies I few it will become irrelevant like the music business is becoming. The perfect analogy for this current fight between Google and the newspaper industry is the music industry versus Apple, Google and other online companies. The newspaper industry simply does not understand the Internet because it is still stuck in a 20th century based mindset, and when one does not understand a new industry one has to partner with leaders in a new industry to move one's content.
If I were in charge I would immediately call in Google, Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, Time Warner, Comcast, SprintNextel, Verizon, Quest and Microsoft and I would transform my content to digital content that would be downloadable, entertaining packaged and even serious in an NPR mode. We already know that NPR radio is the walking case study of a successful old medium that transformed itself through podcasting into a successful new media product on the web. Now this will
not be easy it will require the
newspaper industry to exercise patience and re-train its commentators and reporters into virtual personalities and reporters. It would be a more personalized version of the news that could include all of the news. If they try to monetize, local TV on the web will literally eat their lunch because they already understand video and audio better than many publishers. This is ironic since many publishers own TV properties. The bottom line is that this convergence transition is killing the old newspaper industry so that a more vibrant multi-media based newspaper industry will replace it. Believe it or not, once the transition is completed the newspaper industry will eventually become dominant again once it learns to transform itself into the digital media that it was destined to become. I will be posting this on my blog for my class at Loyola College in Maryland because I think the publishing industry is making the same mistake that the music industry has made and this is terrible for us all as citizens where the printed press was the only industry that was given full Constitutional protection in the First Amendment.
Dr. Chris A. Heidelberg III
Below the is John's response to my email.
Hi Chris,
Thanks much for sharing your thoughts. What you're envisioning has a lot in common with what Google's Eric Schmidt talked about to the AP conference today (http://www.siliconvalley.com/latestheadlines/ci_12094522). I believe such an outcome is possible, but I still worry whether the finances will hold out long enough to evolve without losing some valuable institutions along the way.
Best,
John
