On Sony, Kottke, DRM and the bulldog lawyer approach to doing business

From pub­lic­mind:

Maybe Jason didn’t know, and maybe it’s a coin­ci­dent that Sony is play­ing hard­ball. But the sit­u­a­tion in which Jason is landed is a reminder to the rest of us to think before we publish.

The free­dom of speech is a sen­si­tive one – and it requires respect for the par­ties involved. A sort of……

Respect, sure — goes with­out say­ing. How­ever, this is not that clas­sic “Free­dom of speech”-thing. What I really don’t under­stand is what Sony risks los­ing. Will the num­ber of peo­ple wathc­ing their shows drop due to the post­ing of the sound clip? Hardly. Doesn’t the post­ing of the sound clip (and the many posts about the show before this last sound clip post) indi­cate pub­lic inter­est in their con­cept, some­thing I imag­ine they would want? I can’t see what they gain from play­ing hard­ball — except a pos­si­ble boy­cot, less inter­est in their prod­ucts and leav­ing a feel­ing in their cus­tomers that they really aren’t that impor­tant as human beings; they’re just expected to go by Sony’s rules and pay up. No mak­ing fun of stu­pid DRM (it’s called dia­logue), no dis­play of gen­uine inter­est in a show — just shut up and pay so they can con­trol the info flow sur­round­ing them.

Sony, Apple etc: Please remem­ber that you’re in a damn for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion when you have peo­ple all around the world talk­ing about you — good or bad — long­ing for your prod­ucts, try­ing to guess your next move, prais­ing a lot of the stuff you do, keep­ing your brand alive. We all dis­cuss, engage in con­ver­sa­tion — how come you think you can act com­pletely dif­fer­ent, com­mu­ni­cat­ing through gun­slinger lawyers, expos­ing your fear of not con­trol­ling a sit­u­a­tion that’s really not that bad, but that of course might show room for improve­ment? Lis­ten, learn, engage in the conversation.

It’s that “blogs are like a room full of peo­ple talk­ing about you — do you want to be in the room or not”-thing — only in this case, they don’t stay out­side. They come in and stand in a cor­ner look­ing angry. Have you ever been to a party where peo­ple who wouldn’t say who they were or why they had an aggre­sive look on their faces or why they were there in the first place were treated with any kind of respect? No, they were asked to leave. Sorry guys, we don’t want to play.