Posted by Tattletech on Jan 12, 2012 in
Internet Stuff,
Politics,
SOPA,
guest blog 
Our last guest post of SOPA week comes from Josh Mortensen, the Founder and Managing Partner of GlibHippo. Josh sent us this interesting take on the issue, going back in time a bit and setting up the legacy of rights mismanagement that got us here, via his connection to one very famous movie.
Armageddon. When I hear SOPA, I think of Armageddon. Not the holy-crap-the-Internet-is-going-to-end EFF-style Armgeddon, but the one where Bruce Willis saves Liv Tyler from the giant space rock. The 1998 blockbuster was my ticket through the looking glass into the entertainment industry’s upside down world where its customers are the enemy and the legal department is also in charge of business development.
I actually don’t know much specifically about H.R. 3261. I didn’t even read the Wikipedia entry before writing this. No need really. If it is legislation supported by the entertainment industry (to the tune of $2.5 million as of Dec. 19), I know it is another installment in Hollywood’s lazy legal war against its fans.
In 2003, I started a company that rented DVDs online. The goal being to mimic our US inspiration Netflix by offering the largest film catalogue of any retailer in the country. The thought was that without shelf space being an issue, we could offer everything. This is where Armageddon comes in.
When we started, we bought one copy. (Did I mention that we started in Denmark? Not a big place.) As we grew, the thrill of big rocks in space being what it is, Armageddon became one of our most requested titles. But the studio had sold all of their “rental” copies so, like our customers, we were S.O.L. — never mind that Armageddon DVDs were for sale all over the continent. The Denmark Armageddon rental allotment was done.
The explanation from the studio sounded like what the bastard offspring of Kafaka and Orwell would say if it was raised in Gilliam’s Brazil. It was some confusing triple-think about the number of units that could be produced, proper labeling and geographic rights. It left me thinking it was more a question of effort than legality or rights.
Unfortunately, Armageddon would not be the last title we couldn’t *pay cash money for* because of ”rights issues.” We could get Seasons Two thorough Six of the Sopranos but not Season One, for example. “Rights” were to blame for the lack of available content in almost every case. When your legal arrangements absurdly restrict sales there is a problem.
Armageddon was symbolic of the problem as a whole. It turns out Hollywood has created a ridiculously complex value chain of geographic and chronological rights based on 20th century distribution technology. And it has created this value chain in open contempt of consumers. In fact, it is hard to think of a consumer-driven business more removed from it customers than the entertainment business — DVD region encoding anyone? This rights-based value chain is apparently quite lucrative, hence the industry’s love of legal fees. But this value chain based on restricting access and national boundaries has no place in the 21st century.
SOPA, by extension, is the right solution to the wrong problem. By all means, give the lawyers jobs. But put them to work cleaning up the rights regimes and devising more flexible contracting models that fit our ones and zeroes reality. The problems began with the legal department and while the entire solution does not rest there now, the beginning of that solution does.
You can follow Josh on Twitter @razzmuzzen
Tags: Armageddon, copyright ownership, DVD rental, GlibHippo, Netflix, online piracy, SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act
Posted by Tattletech on Jan 10, 2012 in
Innovation,
Politics,
SOPA,
guest blog One of the concerns voiced in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act is that it will hinder entrepreneurs. Today, we keep SOPA week moving by getting input from Martijn Tjho, CEO at Independent IP (IIP) BV, the company behind FUGA. As an entrepreneur and one who works within the music industry, it’s hard to get much closer to the issue than Martijn.
The Internet drives innovation just as did the invention of electricity, the steam-engine etc. But lawmakers are always one or two steps behind innovation in creating new laws that regulate the new reality. With SOPA, it’s a typical case of good intentions, but shooting from the hip, with the risk innocent bystanders get hurt. This is often what happens when you try to protect the status quo too much.
Before addressing the issue of piracy we need to look at copyright first. A good, but in my opinion incomplete, initiative is the “creative commons” initiative of Lawrence Lessig. His thinking and efforts are aimed at utilizing the Internet and technology for the greater benefit. It still lacks concrete solutions for creating a business around content (How do people get paid and what happens if people don’t obey the rules?), but it is a step in the right direction. Looking into SOPA, I agree with many critics that it will slow down innovation and provides too much control in the hands of a few. It will put more pressure on the already heavily pressured law enforcement and is not organized on a global scale and therefore creates new problems that can and probably will harm the global architecture/nature of the internet.
If you think about the issues at hand and take the time to think beyond the immediate problem (copyright owners not getting paid) there is a greater problem. The Internet has created a global playing field while transparency and governments are still local, protecting their local interests. We have all kinds of trade treaties and international collaboration acts, but no global administration and law enforcement. The issues at hand show a fundamental need for change and adoption of the new reality caused by the nature of the Internet. This problem cannot be tackled by one country. One country solutions create a monster that stops the development of a global awareness, so much more important to protect more than copyright alone. It would set us back to where few could control what many would know and would create an environment where most would suffer. Transparency would become an antiquated term, a fond memory, like the Arab Spring, of when the great innovation called the Internet changed our lives for the better.
The intentions of SOPA are good. Theft should be stopped and the content owners should have more control and better protection against theft. But the world needs to work together and work with the Internet. It should not be like the Berlin wall.
- Martijn Tjho
Tags: creative commons, Internet Censorship, Lawrence Lessig, music piracy, online innovation, online piracy, SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act
Posted by Tattletech on Jan 9, 2012 in
Politics,
SOPA,
guest blog We are keeping the SOPA coverage rolling with more guest posts this week from a variety of different angles on the subject. Today, Ric Ferraro is helping us get a handle on how Spain fits into this American legislation.
The impacts of the so-called US-led Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) reach out well beyond the US. Spain recently (and very swiftly) ratified the Spanish law in support of SOPA, called Sinde’s Law after the increasingly unpopular Spanish Culture Minister, Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde Ruig.
The law basically allows the Spanish government new express powers to shut down non-compliant websites without having to turn to the law courts, who have previously and consistently opted in favour of keeping file-sharing sites online. The Sinde Law also eliminates the commercial motive as a key deciding factor in shutting down non-compliant sites; even sites with no profit motive will be targeted. Sites that are targeted by the government for shut down can appeal to the courts but the lengthy judicial process makes the re-opening of these sites very unlikely; by the time (years) any decision is overturned, web traffic will simply have left to competing sites forever.
But Spanish web-surfers have not remained still. They have joined together in an online initiative called Sinde’s List led by a group of so-called “hack-tivists.” This group initially gathered some 1500 websites with content that would count as infringing under the new law and planned on presenting the list to the Culture Minister to make her understand the impact the law would have in Spain. Many on the list are blogs and the argument is that effectively the law would affect freedom of speech in Spain.
Since the controversial law was passed, Sinde’s List has fizzled out but most observers in Spain believe that content sharing is so endemic that the law will fail to achieve its stated objectives.
By Ric Ferraro, Blogger at Ric Ferraro’s Blog and author of “Location Aware Applications”, referred to as the Rosetta Stone of Location-based mobile Services, published by Manning Co, New York. The book dedicates a whole chapter on privacy issues and is a must-read for those interested in understanding how new regulations around digital services affect tech companies, developers and startups. You can follow Ric on Twitter @ricferr_mobile
Tags: online activism, online piracy, Sinde's Law, Sinde's List, SOPA, Spain, Stop Online Piracy Act
Friend of the blog, Josh Motensen answered the following questions for Exchangewire.com. You can follow him on Twitter @razzmuzzen
ExchangeWire: Can you give some overview on your sales house proposition in Germany?
Josh Mortensen: GlibHippo operates on more or less the same model as other sales houses in Germany but we do not sell for German publishers. We work with US based companies who have significant audiences in Germany and Scandinavia.
Like other sales houses operating in Germany, we sell inventory only for specific publishers on a very traditional and transparent commission model. We do all of our own adserving and any optimization.
EW: How do you work with local publishers? Why would they use a sales house to monetize their inventory?
JM: Our publishers use a sales house for 2 reasons:
The first reason, specific to GlibHippo, is – for Americans – Europe is really a challenge. It is too fragmented. Way too many languages. Operating an international sales team is often beyond the resources of medium size web properties. Without a sales house, their only way to monetize inventory is some form of automation, networks, exchanges etc.
The second, more important, reason: Publishers, and I think this is true worldwide, don’t really like automation. They tolerate it – but they know offering inventory to the algorithms is the equivalent of “empty calories”. It is revenue with little long-term nutritional value. The economics just never work in their favor. (They don’t really work in the advertisers favor either. Another advantage for sales houses)
Publishers know when their inventory is in the hands of the robots, they get arbitraged in a way that gives shameless a bad name. Particularly in markets where they do not have local knowledge.
EW: Do small-to-medium sized German sales house have proprietary technology – such as audience targeting capabilities? Or is the relationship with publishers more consultative?
JM: Sales houses in Germany have their own technology to varying degrees. Many have built their own adservers, for example, in order to accommodate the specifics of their inventory. But broadly speaking, it is more consultative. If they do use audience targeting or any sort of more sophisticated tech, it is usually third party. Sales houses are not in the tech development business.
EW: There are currently German 400+ sales houses? Is that number sustainable? Will there be consolidation in the sales house space?
JM: I think when non-Germans look at the country from the outside, the sales house phenomena is confusing. Americans and Brits make the mistake of seeing the German auto industry as symbolic of the whole economy. The stereotype is that Germany is a model of scale, efficiency and mechanization.
For online advertising, the automated ad-platform and algorithm gee-whizzery in the US and UK makes the dominance of sales houses a disconnect. They are just so, so analogue. So improbably quaint.
But the sales house is reflective of Germany’s macro economy. Small and medium sized businesses, creating highly specialized products and services, in German they are called Mittelstand. They are the country’s commercial engine. These businesses are not anti-scale. They just prefer focus and quality.
Sales houses are the Mittelstand of online advertising. Each house is quite adept at representing their specific inventory and delivering the sales.
The 400+ sales houses in Germany may prove to be a surprisingly stable number. Some consolidation is inevitable, for example along certain verticals. But I would not bet on seeing the German market develop on the same model as the UK or US. The emergence of two or three dominant players is unlikely. For both cultural and economic reasons, fragmentation and diversity are tenacious with a capital “T” in Germany.
EW: Do all these sales houses fight to get on agency media plans?
JM: Yes. But sales houses are often organized around verticals as well so they are talking to different planners. Sales houses do face the serious disadvantage of media planners’ schedule. It is a problem of limited time however, not a question of inferior product.
JM: If the market moves towards automation how do small sales houses compete with SSPs and exchanges? Can SSPs and exchanges really aggregate supply without working with German sales houses?
JM: Sales houses will compete by creating their own networks much like Forbes or CBS Interactive have done in the US.
Sales houses will remain the gatekeepers, retaining control of the inventory to keep pricing transparent and, more important, maintain comfort for advertisers.
If SSPs and exchanges hope to aggregate supply, it will be through the sales houses. Neither publishers nor sales houses have any interest in the commoditization automation brings.
Do not underestimate the strength of sales houses’ relationships with their publishers. It is very unlikely an exchange could come with a proposal that would threaten a sales house’s arrangement with a publisher.
It is worth noting that German publishers seem hesitant to monetize their remnant traffic at the risk of compromising their inventory. This does not mean they won’t. You see premier German publishers appear on exchanges but only for seriously remnant inventory, cross border IPs for example.
Also worth noting: even über american media companies like Turner Networks have pulled their inventory from exchanges for reasons very similar to why German publishers never joined in the first place.
EW: How critical are sales houses to the growth of automated buying and the adoption of RTB?
JM: Just like the growth of aggregated supply, Sales house will be the key drivers if RTB is to take-off in Germany.
EW: How do sales houses view the data-driven display space and RTB? Is it a threat to their business model? Will they have to evolve model to stay competitive?
JM: In the case of Germany, the whole data-driven display slash RTB discussion reflects an Anglo-American cognitive bias toward technology, scalability, venture capital and exit strategy.
The “platformification” of online advertising is a silicon valley phenomena finding considerable resistance in Germany. And it is not because Germans are Luddites, they are just not driven by the same imperatives as their anglo-saxon cousins.
These companies are not interested in becoming a Techcrunch Series-A Page Three Girl. Their directors do not spend every waking moment so consumed by creating shareholder value that they dare not ignore even a fraction of a cent from a ringtone peddler. They are not building companies whose real purpose is a sale to Google.
For that reason, sales houses are only tangentially interested in data-driven display. Ad-tech is a tool not an end in itself. Data-driven display and RTB will grow in Germany but it will grow slowly and on German terms.
Data and RTB are no more of a threat to the sales house model than Wal-Mart was a threat to Germany’s retail model.
EW: How do you see the market evolving over the coming 12 months?
JM; For the next 12 months, data-driven display and RTB still face two significant challenges.
Despite the hype, they have not reached the penetration and volume needed outside Germany to make them a must-have in Germany.
They remain very much a tool created by and mostly for the American market. Both the German online space and the data RTB industry will have to evolve together for their to be more uptake.
In 2012, I think we will see more serious dabbling in the data-driven space, with the active word being “dabbling”. There is too much attention on this space right now for it to be ignored. Do not expect to see a tipping point, however. Not this year.
Tags: Advertising, CBS Interactive, German, German language, Germany, Mittelstand, United States, Wal-Mart
Posted by Tattletech on Nov 1, 2011 in
Apps,
BlackBerry,
Fif-TECH-teen,
Mobile,
guest blog We here at Tattletech are all about what “the kids” are into, with their dubstep and ironic glasses and whatnot, so we decided to bring another perspective on board, a fresh perspective from the next generation of tech users – teens. So we found a teen willing to write for us! In his first post, our newest contributing writer, Sean Edwards, (with an assist from his father) will tell us what technology he uses to stay connected and how this affects his relationships.
You can read Fif-TECH-teen weekly right here on Tattletech. You can also follow Sean on Twitter @sean_edwards1.
Hey!
My name is Sean Edwards, but you guys will soon know me as Fif-TECH-teen. I’m 15 and I live in a very rural community (and by rural I mean a village of 600 or so) in Brittany, France. In my column, I’m going to address the subject of technology from a teen’s point of view, with possible comments from my dad, who claims to be “just a builder” but might be a closet tech writer. My first subject is BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). Yes, I am a teen and I don’t have an iPhone.
Most of you know that BBM is an instant messenger application that’s on all BlackBerry phones. It lets other BB users chat with each other for free, a feature my dad really likes because I have a lot of friends back in the UK and the plan only covers 66 text messages a month, which clearly won’t cut it.
TATTLETECH NOTE: Mashable reported in 2010 that teens send an average of 3,339 texts per month, with teen females sending a whopping 4,050 a month and teen males 2,539 texts.
Because I live in such an isolated place and my friends live so far away (my closest friend lives about five miles away) I use BBM a lot to organize meet ups like going to the cinema or the skate park or even arranging a meal at a restaurant, which I do quite often with my friends from school. I rely on this piece of technology because it lets me keep in touch with all my family and friends near and far, from here to Birmingham, England.
The reason I use this app constantly is because it is so instant, therefore I find it is the next best thing to having a real face-to-face conversation. It is a very effective social tool. It doesn’t have to end since it is an unlimited service, and is tailored to the BlackBerry. BBM was created strictly for the use of BlackBerrys, which makes it more effective than Windows Live Messenger, for example, which was created for PC’s and then transferred to mobile phones..
The only problem I’ve had with BBMing was recently, when BlackBerry had problems at their headquarters in Slough that caused BBM to stop working for around a whole week. I honestly thought my life had come to an end — no organising meals, no speaking to family and friends, nothing! BBM also received a lot of negative press with its connection to the organization of riots throughout England this past August. Regardless of all of this, I still feel that BBM is the best way for me to keep in contact with everybody that I need too.
BlackBerry messenger is a free download to your phone from BlackBerry app world.
Tags: BBM, BlackBerry, BlackBerry Messenger, IPhone, Slough, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger
