The Adams Theory of Content Value

"The iPad has a browsing capability that allows you to see any content on the Internet, legal or not, and consume it from just about anywhere."

is untrue, and not just because there is a large amount of flash content on the Internet. Only a small fraction of illegal content on the Internet is available on the publicly accessible web. I see no reason to think the iPad will ever have bittorrent or filesharing applications, or that a large influx of iPads would allow pirates to overwhelm whatever forces are currently keeping copyrighted material off the web. So how is the iPad supposed to be some sort of game-changing tool for copyright violation?

This is not true. Generally speaking, the easier it is for a 40 year old to find, the easier it is for rightsholders to find and sue. Furthermore Google tends to be pretty cooperative with removing links to egregiously infringing stuff.

But what about the content producers? Already, most "real book" authors don't publish to get rich from royalties, and derive most of their value in the form of personal and professional publicity they receive from their work. If the acquisition of such publicity shifts from big corporate publishing houses who have the business deals in place to get you on The Daily Show to something more democratic, authors benefit from an increasingly meritocratic system, as well.

There is no question that the value of each individual piece of content for each user will drop. However there is also no question that we get more utility out of the content we have, and therefore there is no question that the value of all of the content we have is greater.

The important questions are what fraction of that utility gets captured as income by various providers along the way (a smaller slice of a bigger pie can still be more), and how much an individual provider can capture.

Data from the music industry indicates that musicians who share their music freely make more money in the long run from increased concert sales, and memorabilia sales. (The Grateful Dead are an extreme example.) Data from http://www.baen.com/library/ shows that putting books online increases sales. So we have two examples where more free content translates into more money.

However for now it appears that the search engines, particularly Google, are in the best position to capture value out of the utility of content. But Google recognizes that it is in trouble without content creators and is actively trying to help. Here is hoping that they succeed.

Banging on with words like 'illegal', 'criminal', 'stolen' makes it sound like a testy lament that the barbarians are at the gates. Things are changing, and most likely for the better. The fear of diminishing content from loss of incentive is not materialising. Between 2002 and 2007, film, book, and music production are all significantly up ('File-Sharing and Copyright'; Oberholzer-Gee, Strumpf; 2010.)

Not being able to imagine how production might be funded without distribution monopolies (copyright) doesn't mean new ways cannot be developed. The tech that is withering copyright gives us much more than it takes away.

Currently, we have a perceived value of something based on its cost (see any web app pricing article). Will this evaporate as almost all content becomes free? Will our perceived value based on cost be replaced by some ranking system that Adams alludes to as "better search"?

This is the second variable that I think many people miss when they talk about the inevitable shift to free content as a negative thing for consumers.

In simple words, he's just saying:

    Piracy makes your content worth nothing.