Control

I'm flat out today so I don't have time for analysis but three very separate and distinct things caught my eye while I was drinking my coffee first thing this morning and scanning the my rss reader downloads.



www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/technology/03code.html
There is open revolt on the Web. Sophisticated Internet users have banded together over the last two days to publish and widely distribute a secret code used by the technology and movie industries to prevent piracy of high-definition movies.
The broader distribution of the code may not pose a serious threat to the studios, because it requires some technical expertise and specialized software to use it to defeat the copy protection on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. But its relentless spread has already become a lesson in mob power on the Internet and the futility of censorship in the digital world.



http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OSE0FO0&show_article=1
Obama Camp Takes Control of MySpace Page
Is MySpace always mine or can it belong to someone else? At the cost of losing 160,000 friends, Democrat Barack Obama presidential campaign has taken over control of the MySpace page listed under his name on the popular social networking site.

For the past two and a half years, the page has been run by an Obama supporter from Los Angeles named Joe Anthony. At first, that arrangement was fine with the Obama team, which worked with Anthony on the content and even had the password to make changes themselves.

MySpace reluctantly stepped in to settle the dispute and decided that Obama should have the rights to control http://www.myspace.com/barackobama as of Monday night, while Anthony had the right to take the contact information for all the friends who signed up while he was in control. That includes the right to tell them exactly how he feels about the Obama campaign.

Anthony referred The Associated Press to his MySpace blog, where he has written that he is heartbroken that the Obama campaign was "bullying" him out of the page he built. He said the candidate has lost his vote.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is trying to rebuild his friends network from scratch and was up to more than 17,000 by midday Wednesday. "We support the MySpace community, and look forward to building our relationship," said campaign spokesman Bill Burton.



http://photosandponders.blogspot.com/2007/05/pandora-to-block-international.html
Pandora to block international listeners from May 3rd.
"Dear Pandora listener,
Today we have some extremely disappointing news to share with you. Due to international licensing constraints, we are deeply, deeply sorry to say that we must begin proactively preventing access to Pandora's streaming service for most countries outside of the U.S.
It is difficult to convey just how disappointing this is for us. Our vision remains to eventually make Pandora a truly global service, but for the time being, we can no longer continue as we have been. As a small company, the best chance we have of realizing our dream of Pandora all around the world is to grow as the licensing landscape allows.



I know you guys are smart enough to draw the conclusions that something has shifted in the tide of control.

As I've advised content consulting projects I've worked on in the past, you can take advantage of this or you can try and control it and fail.

The tools for your consumers to abuse you are too widely spread and too easily available to pretend you can control the hydra serpent that is your customers.

Accept it and learn from it but evolve or die. The choice is yours.


Cheers,
Dean