Free Ride

June 27, 2011
With penetrating analysis and insight, Levine, a former executive editor of Billboard magazine, dissects the current economic climate of the struggling American media companies caught in the powerful fiscal grip of the digital industry. The author argues that newspaper, music, and film industries presently record weak revenues and ad support, while customers turn to the music and information of the Internet's iTunes, Rhapsody, Netflix, Google, and others, assisted by strong government aid in funding and legislation. Levine aptly points out a critical conflict: "Most online companies that have built businesses based on giving away information and entertainment aren't funding the content they're distributing." He is most convincing in his belief that the declining quality of information in the print business results from decreasing investment, adding that the consumer is the victim of the emphasis on profits and greed. One intriguing section of the book is the excellent comparison of the domestic market and the European digital industry, with robust regulations and willingness to protect copyrights and privacy. Maybe Levine has not gone far enough in spelling out how the media can get its mojo back, but this incisive book is a start at an informed dialogue.

September 15, 2011

An argument for (finally) monetizing the cultural offerings of the Internet and making them unprofitable for pirates and other parasites.

Former Billboard executive editor Levine knows that he's arguing against big money, particularly from Google, which, he says, has a profitable interest in an unrestricted flow of consumers searching for free journalism, free music, free books and free movies and TV shows. Unfortunately for more traditional culture businesses, the free Internet has been a disaster. Consider the devastation Napster and the MP3 wrought on the recording industry, supplanting a model in which consumers bought whole albums of songs for upwards of $20 just to own a handful they really liked. While this may have been inefficient for the buyer, Levine argues, it enabled labels to support artists they believed in. He claims the single-centric iTunes model is hardly better than the free version: The low price of songs, designed to entice people into buying the expensive equipment to play them on, leaves less for the artists and studios that produce them. A similar dynamic had been at work in the publishing industry, writes the author, where Amazon's Kindle threatened to collapse the royalty structure in hard-copy publishing until publishers and Amazon's competitors forced it, after an ugly public battle, to adopt higher "agency model" prices on most e-books. Levine's argument will be most welcome among the captains of the culture industry. While general readers may learn something from his erudition, most will probably be rubbed the wrong way by his focus on blockbuster culture and championing of record-company owners, TV executives and newspaper magnates who have insisted on maintaining a profit model. Nevertheless, the final chapters offer an intelligent analysis of steps that can be taken to fight piracy and support the culture industry, including the artists and writers who create for the content, without soaking the consumer.

A valiant effort to raise public consciousness on an unheralded issue.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2011

Don't have a subscription to HBO or Netflix but want to see an episode of True Blood? Just download it. What's the harm, right? Levine (former executive editor, Billboard) details how--beyond issues of morality--the illegal distribution of cultural products like television shows and music seriously impacts the economic and cultural underpinnings of society. His focus, though, is not on the average consumer who downloads the latest U2 song but on websites that illegally share or sell these copyrighted works. Similar to Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture, Levine's extensively researched work illustrates how digital piracy undermines artistic creativity and the economy. Furthermore, he offers solid ideas on how artists and businesses can work together to provide timely and inexpensive ways for consumers to obtain the product they want when they want it. VERDICT For anyone interested in trends in Internet usage, copyright law, and mass media and society. [See Prepub Alert, 4/11/11.]--Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2011
An economic war is raging between traditional media industries, such as publishing, music, and Hollywood moviemaking, and new content providers like Google, YouTube, Amazon, and Apple. And the traditional media are losing. While print newspapers struggle to survive, the Huffington Post, which aggregates and summarizes content created by other media, recently sold to AOL for more than $300 million. YouTube rakes in billions in ad revenue by similarly piggybacking on others' work. A growing population weaned on file sharing is demanding content their way, and while Internet access is the way of the future, few old media companies have figured out how to move their businesses profitably online. Levine spells out the difficulties of enforcing copyright in the digital age and describes how the 1996 Digital Millennium Copyright Act has turned out to be a mixed bag for media companies. He believes that convenience is the key factor that will drive consumers away from piracy and toward a sustainable model that rewards the creators of artistic works.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)