Shirky writes that this upcoming SOPA and PIPA bills would create a consumption-only internet, leaving the large, politically-protected media firms as the sole providers of content, just like the the good old days when publishing nearly any form of content was prohibitively expensive.
The internet made everyone a publisher; everyone a content creator. The cat’s been out of the bag for 15 years. It just gets easier every year with better and cheaper tools. Look at the recently released iBooks Author app from Apple. This free app lets anyone easily create a book and sell it on iTunes. Amazon and Barnes and Noble make it relatively easy and cheap–read free–to publish eBooks on the Kindle and Nook. I know because I’ve done it many times. You can even publish your own softcover book through CreateSpace for a nominal fee (the cost of shipping a proof of your book is the only charge.) Anyone with a Mac, Garageband, a mic and an instrument can make music that would have cost tens of thousands in equipment and studio time not too long ago. Movies are still expensive but the price has come down considerably over the years. Just think, the iPhone 4s can shoot video in 1080p resolution! You could make a movie with that and a Mac running iMovie for editing. It’s been done countless times.
The point is, the media companies are desperate to protect their aging, declining business models. They say it’s about piracy, but it’s not. They are using political means to protect their business. Media companies are zombies, being kept alive by their friends in Congress.
We still go to the movies, we still buy books and movies, and we still watch TV shows. We have far more choices now beyond the large media companies, and we want to consume our content on any device we own. The days of sitting in front of the tube at 8pm to watch sitcoms is long gone. We create, we consume and there’s nothing the media companies or Congress can do about it. They can censor what we do on the web, but we’ll find another way. There’s always another way.
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