The article basically touches over most major technological advances over the last centry, and digs up what “Big Content” had to say about it at the time. Big Content being Music, Film and Print industries.
Such business-busters as the Xerox machine:
“the day may not be far off when no one need purchase books”
The VCR:
We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is able to retrieve a surplus balance of trade and whose total future depends on its protection from the savagery and the ravages of this machine.
And of course, MP3:
We’ve come full circle here, as this is the inverse of Sousa; a new technology won’t eliminate the amateurs, it will eliminate all the professionals and leave nothing but amateurs.
Of course, this seems all too familiar. The roadblocks and excuses being thrown up today are the same that were spun up all those years ago, those which failed to come to fruition. The same things are being threatened – the death of industries, the loss of jobs and the destruction of dreams.
However, what can be said of all of these advances is that they caused change. They caused a reshuffle of the industry in question, but eventually everything settled down again to get back to what they were doing: making money. In fact, if I remember correctly, most content industries are in boom, some making more money than they ever had (with the exception of newspapers, but I feel they’re the author of their own demise).
So “Big Content” is quite comfortable where it is, thank you very much, and is apparently quite happy to fight tooth and nail against anything that may cause change. The problem is, these industries have a lot of teeth and too many nails. We have the huge lobby groups, the MP/RIAA and the very prominent spokespeople with their voice in the ear of our politicians.
This is why so many people keep an eye on the laws being passed in our names, on behalf of these industries. We need to watch whats going on in the fields of Copyright and Intellectual Property (don’t even get me started about software patents) before we regulate ourselves out of evolution.
National’s handling of this Richard Worth affair has been bad, both ethically and politically. Even worse for them, Labour leader Phil Goff has come out of it smelling like roses, ratcheting his profile up a few notches.
I assume Crosby/Textor are on holiday (celebrating a 2-point clarification from Nicky Hagar, perhaps?) because even John Key himself, who’s spin is usually water tight, is beginning to fall over.
For instance, this interview on RNZ Checkpoint last night is an absolute stunner. Key refuses to answer questions, attacks Goff, attacks the victim, defends Worth and gets caught out lying.
Hmmm, as much as Paul Henry gets my goat, the reality is that he grills John Key better than anyone else currently in the media, it’s always as if as a former National Party candidate that Paul has been personally offended by the Prime Minister’s lack of a red neck. –Bomber Bradbury
Also… Textses? Piggy in the Middle? Was also funny to hear him saying “I don’t sack ministers on unproved allegations”, when that was what he was calling Clark to do to Winston last year. What happened to 1-strike you’re out?
“I am tired of politicians who say it is probably inevitable we will become a republic at some stage, but who are unwilling to do anything to bring it about – that is extremely weak.”
– Peter Dunne, Time to have our say on republic issue – 26 April 2009
This is a pretty serious misuse of urgency. It also has the side effect of stifling debate on the matter by not allowing submissions from the public, but rather get rid of their unpopular policy at the start of the term so it’s forgotten by the next election.
It’s also highly hypocritical (surprised?). National, quite rightly, were very outspoken about the manner in which the Electoral Finance Act was passed, but even that went through Select Committee hearings and 6 months worth of public debate before it was finally signed into law.
So we’ve had a few weeks under a National-lead government so far. Parliament hasn’t sat yet, but if you watch closely you can see the changes already.
I will happily admit that the way John Key assembled his government struck me as decisive and honest, which we hadn’t seen a lot of from National recently. I especially applaud his movements to incorporate the Maori Party into his government, handing out some very important portfolios such as Maori Affairs and assorted associate roles.
This would have been absolutely unthinkable even three years ago, even seemingly to Labour after Helen’s “last cab off the rank” comment. I believe it goes to show that one of Labour’s highest achievements from their 9 years in power is how they have forced the National party to change into something that is palatable to the general population.
However, it’s not all sunshine and lollipops. In forming the government John Key has had to make some dangerous concessions to the small red devil on his shoulder that is ACT.
National want to take the ETS back to Select Comittee, and ACT wants the Select Committee’s terms of reference to include a complete review of the basic science behind anthropomorphic climate change. Science which, even the President-elect of the USA believes is “beyond dispute” as he takes steps to sign the USA to Kyoto and implement their own Emissions Trading Scheme.
In this light, it makes New Zealand’s rhetoric and slack efforts even more hypocritical considering our clean, green image. Something John Key, as Minister of Tourisim, might want to take a note of before he disassembles and delays our sole response to climate change (and paying our $2bn Kyoto liability which would otherwise be picked up by the taxpayer) even further.
It’s this position that he’s taken that makes his little tantrum about the UK’s environment-inspired long haul flight tax seem even more ironic. If we were fighting from a position of strong action on climate change, it could be validly argued to have the tax waived for NZ flights as we do our own bit to control our carbon footprint and combat climate change. The same premise we’re going to have to rely on when we try and sell our exports once food miles are taken into account.
But instead he directly attacks the UK’s government spouting “significant concern”, fear of a “contagion effect” and letting them know that their tax policy is “not necessarily rational”. I’m sure that’s just what they want to hear from a trumped up little pipsqueak that was only sworn in a few weeks ago. Especially after pulling such tricks as spending the last year blaming the Labour-lead government for our current economic woes then giving a speech at APEC proclaiming that it’s the fault of his money-trading mates that, well, might have gotten a bit greedy.
So Key needs to ramp himself down from campaign mode, stop attacking things that threaten him and, most importantly, he needs to not be a Rodney.
However, it might be too late to save his skin – the damage may have already been done.
On the other hand, to survive the blitz from the media and the 10 post a day habit from Kiwiblog and still come out just shy of the 5% threshold… There might be some life in the old bastard yet. Although I have no time for NZ Firsts endless immigrant bashing and social conservatism, Mr. Key could have made the blunder of the election by ruling him out before investigations were finished.
If posed with a choice between NZ First and the Greens (who will not work with each other at all, either), I believe Labour would pick the Greens who have grown up a lot and are especially important in these times we face.
So, in all likelyhood he’s probably out on his well-pampered, bauble-draped arse, but Winston is a wildcard and while I wouldn’t miss him one bit, he represents those who give him their vote.
This one, apparently, fingers Bill English professing that National would pursue their hard-right agenda, their Labour Plus strategy being a “Trojan Horse” and John Key’s days being numbered as leader – because of a growing faction of MPs dissatisfied about the concessions their party has made to come close to power.
Whether it’s true or not, we’ll see, but the Kiwiblog comments are strangely calm with a lot of crossed fingers not typing.
Imagine if officials in a Government department were to allege that the Clark administration was caught in a massive corruption scandal, and leak ministerial documents that will leave two Ministers and a former Minister facing the music?
Imagine if it was the biggest political scandal the Clark administration has ever faced, bar none.
Sounds interesting, but they could have gotten somebody with a bit more credit than Ian Wishart to push their election scandal – you know, someone like Nicky Hagar!
After their last little joke that went too far you would think that they wouldn’t be in a hurry to repeat that little performance. So I just guess and see what comes out when Wishart gets squeezed.
A “new” comer to the election is the Family Party. Well, that’s what they want you to think, anyway. When really, they’re the reincarnation (or they would be the reincarnation, if they believed in that sort of claptrap) of the infamous Desitiny Party.
Not to be confused with the Kiwi Party, who are the jilted militant Christian wing that has split from the new and boring United Future.
On the North Shore, the Family Party is pushing their candidate for East Coast Bays, Paul Adams. You know you can trust him because he owns a car workshop. He seems to be campaigning on the fact that McCully does pretty well ’round this neck of the woods and seems to be standing on the logically unsound premise that if you give your electorate vote to Adams, McCully will ride in on National’s party list and East Coast Bays will have TWO MP’s in parliament to represent them.
If but it was so.
What’s more likely to happen, if he has any success, is he’ll split the National/Fundy vote and second-place Labour candidate Vivienne Goldsmith will ride in on a minority. Oh the joys of First Past the Post.
By being dishonest on his hoardings and leaflets he feels he can trick voters into getting him into parliament and a few on the list if he can too.
With this power, he promises to “fix” the smacking law (pretty sure we already did that, pal), rebuild the marriage culture (by stopping couples that love each other but are not man/woman couples) and easing the burden on families by doing things such as giving huge tax breaks to married couples (no room for abuse, there!), removing GST of food and petrol (instead of targeting families directly like Working For Families does) and best of all, tackling the global warming myth.
I really dislike the groups that push the cause of “the family” to drag us back to the dark ages.
If you enjoy being berated and accused of insanity, enjoy their promo video below.
If you pre-write your column for delayed publication, please try and correct your factual errors before going to press.
Never, ever, EVER write off Winston Peters
If you imply that Labour are poisoning National in the next term in your headline, try and elaborate on how it’s the scum sucking socialists fault and not the last decade or so of baseless banking speculation, free market capitalism and greed that you fight so hard to defend.
Web Developer by hobby, then by trade. I am currently rendering my services to the great Mighty Ape with one or two personal projects currently in early stages. Hopefully more on that later.
I work on Mac's, but game on my PC's - can currently be found on Borderlands, Dragon Age: Origins, Borderlands and Homerun Battle 3D on my Nexus One :)
You're likely to find posts here about my life, my work, technology and some politics - all with a New Zealand twist!
