gregory donovan's eportfolio (a syndication of cyberenviro.org)
Archive for Grinch
by gtdonovan on August 28, 2009 at 5:48 pm · Filed under Castells, CEM, commodification, Grinch, informationalism, News Corp, property
According to Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corp:
We intend to charge for our news websites. The Wall Street Journal‘s WSJ.com is the world’s most successful paid news site and we will be using our profitable experience there and the resulting unique skills throughout News Corp to increase our revenues from all our content.
And from Chase Carey, News Corp’s Vice-Chairman and COO:
We believe customers value quality journalism. We need to get paid for our product as it shifts to the digital world.
Whether it’s Diller, Iger, or Murdoch – there is one message here: People need to pay us even more for the privilege of being influenced by our digital content! But, isn’t their influence valuable enough? Rather than discussing how consumers should pay more for the privilege of being influenced by these corporations, we should be discussing the social, political, psychological, and economic costs of giving these corporations the kind of influence they have. We pay a price by allowing corporations like IAC, Disney, and News Corp to wield as much power as they do within our society – something Manuel Castells highlights nicely in his “Communication, power and counter-power in the network society” essay.
by gtdonovan on August 27, 2009 at 4:44 pm · Filed under CEM, commodification, Grinch, Iger, privacy, property, quotes, surveillance
According to PaidContent.org, Robert Iger (CEO of Walt Disney Co.) recently stated:
Our product is extremely valuable … and if we are offering it on another platform or in another location for the consumer to access it, I believe that’s more value we are delivering [to a distributor or consumer] and we should get paid appropriately.
If Disney plans to make their content space-time specific, how exactly do they plan to enforce that without violating the privacy of their consumers? Disney would have to track their content over time and across space — even after it’s been purchased. Welcome to the Cyberspace Enclosure Movement (CEM).
by gtdonovan on July 28, 2009 at 5:14 pm · Filed under commodification, Diller, free, Grinch, property, work
According to Bloomberg.com, Barry Diller (Chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp) has joined a growing list of corporate executives trying to convince the public that they should pay for the online content that has largely been produced by the public — for free:
“It is not free, and is not going to be,” Diller said today at the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Pasadena, California. In addition to IAC, he is chairman of Expedia Inc., the online travel service, and Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc.
Diller, 67, joined a group of media chiefs, from Liberty Media Corp.’s John Malone to Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger, who are challenging the accepted model that consumers pay for Internet access and then content is free. Diller predicted there will be three revenue streams: advertising, subscriptions and transactions.”
Advertising and transactions are one thing – while both are fraught with ethical, moral, and legal concerns, they have nonetheless become established “revenue streams” for many online companies. The advanced targeting capabilities afforded by the Internet delivers consumers to corporations more effectively than print media or television could have ever dreamed (e.g. facebook), and many people — myself included — have demonstrated a willingness to pay (or pay more) for “secure” transactions (e.g. PayPal). But subscriptions? Why should anyone have to pay for online content, the overwhelming majority of which has been freely produced by the public?
Propertizing free information, and charging people to access it, is an awfully Grinch thing to do.
