Media is a creature of technology. Whether a cunieform text incised in clay by stylus or a sound recording made in a modern studio with digital equipment, what we call “media” is the representation of human expression by means of a technology.
We assign copyright to original expression once its “fixed in a tangible medium” of expression — that is, once married to technology to create media.
Yet despite that marriage is not always a happy one.
media is also in tension with technology. At least since the time of Gutenberg, technology innovation has served both to amplify the production and dissemination of media products, and to challenge existing modes of production and the social and commercial arrangements that framed them, or were framed by them.
Today, technology innovation is happening at a furious pace, from cloud computing to artificial intelligence to advances in virtual reality. And it’s driving equally furious shifts in the social and commercial arrangements of the media industries.
Concurrent Media founder and principal Paul Sweeting has spent more than three decades researching, writing about and advising clients on the intersecting worlds of media, technology and public policy, in a career spanning journalism, research and consulting, business analysis and public speaking. Concurrent Media is also a founding partner in the RightsTech Project, an innovative business and professional community that brings together creators and rights owners, technology companies and entrepreneurs, legal and financial professionals, and public policy officials to explore technology-enabled solutions to better management, monetization and licensing of media rights around the world.