Patrick Chataignier

It seems that Internet is just about to being born. In fact, all the current discussions regarding the good practices and the bad ones (illegal download) will trigger a legal frame for this common service (see my first article on this blog). For the time being, the baby has just got a name…but a lot remains to be done to give this child a life of his own among us.

Just bear in mind that the Hadopi law (Haute autorité pour la diffusion des oeuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet) will be submitted on a last vote on April 9^th among French deputies before being submitted to the French Senate. The setup of the law will take at least a year, because the carriers need to get prepared for it.

Strange as it seems, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (the new secretary of state at the Digital economy) remains discreet on this subject, pretending in an on-line interview  (Le Figaro, March 20^th) that the French culture Minister is much more concerned by this subject that raises many challenging questions. Take a look at this one: “Is the intellectual property more important than the fundamental law?”. In other words: is the content produced by artists prevailing upon the right to have an Internet access? At the end of February the Lambridinis report was voted in Brussels by the LIBE commission (Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affaires of European Parliament). This text claims that everyone is entitled to an Internet access and that no penalty should lead to the suppression of the Internet access at home as would be the case with Hadopi. What is at stake is the nature of Internet and the accurate place for all those who contribute to fill in the pipes.

Orange, which is both a network provider and a content player, is therefore desperate to find its place on the new media market and does not understand why they have been condemned by the French Justice department in February for proposing their football sports show only to Orange (Tripleplay) customers. Orange has decided to abide by the law and to hang up the sell of their sports channel until April 30th when the court will decide in the wake of the appeal. Raoul Roverato, head of “New growth activity” at Orange, is maintaining that the French authorities had previously given their agreement to Orange in order to favour competition in French media as far as sports are concerned and not let Canal+ (after the merge with TPS) lead the race alone. There again, two interesting questions come to mind: should the content and the network be independent? Are there any new models available for Internet and content players that would meet commercial success and guarantee profitability to the companies?

Among the possible economic models within reach of Internet stakeholders, “Free offers” seem to be more and more trendy. Chris Anderson, chief editor of the “Wired” magazine (a magazine dedicated to new technologies) believes that each company will be compelled to use one of the three free models available.

• First one: you buy an amount of products, you get some free (SFR offers where you get two products at the price of one are internally named “BOGOF”: Buy one, get one free).
• Second model: your product is free because it is paid by advertisement.
• Last but not least the third model is the free concept based on digital economy, where 1% of users buy the deluxe version of products enabling all the other customers to benefit from free use of simple versions.

This point of view leads to a larger question, that could be summarized in “How will Internet look like” in ten years’ time. I am just reading a book from Nassim Nicholas Taleb (”The Black Swan”). Taleb is a bestselling author (and also an essayist, epistemologist, polymath, researcher… dedicated to “Hazard science”) who claims that no one can predict the future. What is a black swan?, you may ask me. Very simple! It is an event that no one can really foresee, that has a major impact on our lives and that experts will be desperate to analyse afterwards. 11^th September, the Harry Potter phenomenon…the Internet boom are black swans. In a few words, as black swans can not be predicted, it is challenging to guess how the future will be for any subject but no one can really be sure…even for Internet.

Nevertheless Chris Anderson’s opinion about new “free concepts” is good food for thought …but the road will be long before an Internet economic model can be considered as viable in the long term. All of us implicated in Web projects on our missions, can be  smart little ants helping to shape the next economic models that are necessary to keep Internet, this major ecosystem of our century,  as safe as possible.

Read more:

• La justice oblige Orange à suspendre la commercialisation de sa chaîne sportive
• Chris Anderson : « A l’avenir, chaque entreprise va devoir fabriquer des produits gratuits »
• Kosciusko-Morizet prend ses distances avec l’Hadopi
• La propriété intellectuelle avant le droit fondamental sur Internet ?

writen by Patrick Chataignier.