May 09
26

Media Content vs other US exports

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Thanks, Chris, for the introduction!

As reader well know, there's a lot of noise in the P2P scene at present, especially following the recent Pirate Bay case in Sweden.

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/20434
http://google.com/trends?q=pirate+bay
http://thepiratebay.org/blog.php

The legal muscle is coming from the US, which is the largest producer of media content in the world. So how does this sector compare with other US export sectors?

I whacked together this graph, based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

That's a lot of money leaving the US every year. I couldn't easily find a break down of this data into various sectors, but I did find this quote by Sheldon Pressor, Senior Vice President of Warner Brothers:

“The entertainment industries are one of the U.S. economy’s greatest assets. Based on Department of Commerce statistics, the copyright industries represent more than 6% of the nation’s GDP. We bring in more international revenues from exports than aircraft, agriculture, auto parts.  We also are creating new jobs at three times the rate of the rest of the economy.  The movie industry alone has a surplus balance of trade with every single country in the world that exhibits our films.  No other American enterprise can make that statement.”

You would expect him to be in the know, and presenting accurate figures to Congress regarding recommendations for a Free Trade Agreement.

So it is quite clear that the entertainment industry, and probably the content industry in more broad terms (including news, and media in general), is of great interest and importance to the US economy.

There's also quite a bit of noise in Australia at present regarding the government's plans to censor the internet. Could these all be related?

Here's another interesting quote, from Elizabeth Frazee, Entertainment Industry Coallition (EIC).

“It will ensure that adequate legal incentives are in place to encourage cooperation by Internet Service Providers in dealing with online piracy.”

So will it be that if the ISPs of Australia don't stand up and play-ball with the EIC, then the Australian government will be forced to legislate the EIC's desires because of the Free Trade Agreement that is in place?

And who is the EIC, by the way? The usual suspects:

“Our members include BMG Music; The Directors Guild of America (DGA); EMI Recorded Music; the Entertainment Software Association (ESA); The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians,  Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada (IATSE); Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA); Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA); National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO); New Line Cinema; the News Corporation Limited; Paramount Pictures; Producers Guild of America (PGA); Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); Sony Music Entertainment Inc.; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Television Association of Programmers (TAP) Latin America; Time Warner;  Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Universal Music Group; Viacom; Universal Studios; the Walt Disney Company; Warner Bros.;  Warner Music Group; and The Writers Guild of America, west (WGAw).”

I'm not sure that I agree in losing civil liberties for the sake of these content producing companies’ failure to provide a business model that delivers via the Internet.

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