Should bands sue record labels over threat to ban fans?

This is such typical centralised, broadcast thinking. Just exactly what do they think they can control?
The record industry has struck a deal with the six major UK ISPs and the Government to 'deal with' people who illegally share music*.

Deluded fools.

So the second mass media (recordings) is trying to exert control over the sixth (the internet) and the eighth (us)? (image by digitalbear)

How do they propose to do this? Well, they'll send us a stern letter (anyone else see the irony in choosing the post as a delivery mechanism rather than an IM or an email?). Er....and then they'll think about what to do next... Right.

There are a few problems here. I don't have enough life to detail them all, but let's describe the biggies.

1. Nobody owns the internet - least of all the six major UK ISPs. They have no control over what is done on it or by whom or how one node or person connects to another. Their only control is to charge admission. They aren't the only ones to supply access. Others will see a competitive advantage in refusing an invite to this Government-hosted record industry party. Beware the backlash big fellas!

2. Haven't the record companies heard of the because effect? Prince has, Radiohead have, NineInchNails have, and recently (free cd on the Mail on Sunday just before the release of a not free CD) David Bowie has. If you can't make money with content, you can because of it (eg google vs yahoo!). Is the Guardian about to send me a letter insisting I cease and desist from linking to its website because of the link I shared at the top of this post? No it expects the attention I have given it to create value (see also point 4!). Get it?

3. This is a slippery slope. If the Government is so keen to encourage complicity with national laws in respect of music downloads, why not on porn? What if it gets a taste for this control lark? Would anyone use the Government-approved internet?

4. *Thou shalt not promote/recommend to your friends (leveraging your own social graph as the perfect distribution method) or otherwise solicit the sales of our product... is not something I would expect the promoters of artists (that's you, record companies) to demand of my fans.

If I was in a band I'd seriously consider sueing!

The internet changes everything. You cannot expect to impose old ideas of business as usual.
As Clay explains (via Alan) below. Buy Clay's book. It's great. Mind you, so is Alan's.

I'm in media! Oh really? So are my children...

I responded to Paul Bradshaw's interesting question about the future of training for journalists here and by way of introduction mentioned that: "I've been in media for 20 years, unless you count the fanzines I wrote as a kid."

Actually, I was in media as soon as I could be. I even made my own comics and newspapers before I had any means of distributing them.

Which makes me think today's kids will be in media rather earlier and rather longer - and they'll understand the power that gives them rather earlier.

As soon as they connect via the likes of habbo hotel, club penguin, or many of the other social networks for kids they are in media. (image by Terry Lloyd Smith)

They have the tools to enable what we've all become:

We're all publishers now, we're all distributors now, we're all advertisers now, as I've said before.

Which means as soon as we start forming into groups via the network we're in media.

Perhaps we are really in media even before we reach out for our first mouse - part of the eighth mass media I've started exploring here and here?

Subjectivity is the new objectivity

Just added a new post at /message: Subjectivity is the new Objectivity.

Twitter: The newspaper of tomorrow?

My old mum says she hardly reads her daily newspaper these days. She's been getting the Daily Express delivered for as long as I can remember.

Habit is a powerful thing so the executives at the Daily Express may sleep safe; I don't think she's about to give up paying for her daily copy. It's just she's "seen it all on the TV" by the time the paper arrives.

There's no use telling me you're setting your own news agenda, ploughing your own furrow etc etc. Your user thinks you're just reheating old news. Sorry, but there it is. (Image by kamerakrazy)

Her son (that's me folks) has never had a newspaper delivered in his life. Plenty to worry about for national newspaper folk then.

There's nothing new in this. Microsoft predicts the death of newspapers within 20 years.

Some of the debate about the skills journalism students need, which you'll find here, suggests that while there may still be printed mass distributed things in the future, we may only persist in calling them 'news' papers out of habit.

The thing is, my old mum does still read her weekly local paper. She doesn't do that out of some loyalty born of the fact it was where I started my career. No, she does it because it carries content she has not had access to elsewhere.

She doesn't have access to the internet, and the broadcast types behind the likes of teletext have never gone hyperlocal enough to become relevant or convenient enough for her.

So the local paper remains (for her, at least) a source of unique, relevant content which she is prepared to pay for. Even the advertising in it - by virtue of its focus on the local - for the most part, is of some value to her.

There are hints here for all services - print and digital:
Relevant = useful = valued

Imagine if you knew enough local people on twitter, people you have connected with and maintained connections with through the metadata you have exchanged - so that you trust them and can believe what they have to say.
Imagine if you could select 'My location' on twitter - and only receive tweets from people with x miles.
Imagine you could toggle this on and off when it matters to you.

Perhaps this is the shape of the newspaper of the future?

Whatever tools your communities choose to use, what is clear is that 'news' (read information or content) that people find relevant is that which is niched, either by topic or location or both.

Communities of purpose are the groups to make that happen - just another reason why they will play out as the business units of the 21st century.

Twitter; The newspaper of tomorrow? Well yes, in as much as it is a very effective way of discovering, filtering and distributing information with levels of relevance no printed medium yet has been able to compete with.

It is not alone in asking tough questions. The new digital tools of human connection (of group forming) consistently raise them:

• What is the value of mass/broad?
• What is the value of mediation?

Voting is now open on the Rock Stars of Web2.0

Over the past couple of months we've been compiling a list of the great and the good of the internet - ready for you to select their ordering.
So we've rounded them up and now they await your attention. A couple of clicks and you're done.
Hope you'll join in the fun. VOTE NOW!