billso.com

In this post on his blog, Kevin Kelly discusses how the Internet is a massive copying machine. This is a major reason that digital rights management (DRM) does not protect business models very well.

The music and movie industries have focused on protecting content and managing copying, instead of building and offering value that is difficult or hard to copy. U2’s manager recently attacked ISPs, search engines and other companies for aiding and abetting music and video file sharing on the Internet. (CBC).

Kelly, on the other hand, proposes a network economy where sharing and abundance are key success factors that every content publisher must satisfy. He also identifies 8 key success factors that spur customers to buy instead of copy.

It’s difficult to copy reputation and trust, but it’s rather easy to offer or measure these attributes. Just look at eBay.

Reputation and trust are relevant in education. Jason Schultz published links to several YouTube videos of students demonstrating how to cheat in school. BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow discussed his own experiences with cheating when he linked to Schultz’s post.

Schools offer interpretation, which is another form of value that is difficult to copy. Grading, evaluation, advising are good examples of content that is very difficult to copy. These also have elements of personalization, which help increase their value.

Patronage is another factor. Some users want to pay for content, even if it can be downloaded free of charge.  Physical forms that cannot be downloaded through the Internet can also make content more valuable – cover art and booklets are examples in the music industry.

Convenience is also an important value generator. Immediate access to content may be more important to some users than eventually finding free access through peer-to-peer networks or file sharing. Metadata, XML and web services are some of the tools that small and independent publishers use to sell their content.

Blogs are also part of the value system that is created as multiple value chains link together from end to end. BoingBoing is a good example – that blog has several editors who promote their solo media projects through the web site. I discovered Kelly’s article on a BoingBoing post, as a matter of fact.