The following internal debate has livened up our day, following the release of Academic Advisor Stan Liebowitz's paper on parasite technologies:

Adam Thierer:

In my opinion, this piece leads to an obvious conclusion that Stan seems to want to avoid: banning (a whole lot of) technology. His logic can be extended backwards to cassette tapes and VCRs and forwards to DVD burners, MP3 players / recorders, and the many PVR hybrid devices on the market or in development. It’s as if the piece assumes that broadcasters & advertisers have a sort of right to a captive audience. Under this construction of things, therefore, ad-blocking technologies or commercial-avoidance techniques become “parasitic.” But this is absurd.

When my nanny at my house brings the mail into my house each day, she throws all the junk ads and flyers away for me before I get home to read my mail. Is she acting in a “parasitic” way? What if in the future I programmed a robot to rip out all the ads from a magazine before I decided to read it? Should that robot or activity be banned? More simply, what if someone gets tired of looking at offensive ads on billboards across from their apartment and put a big sheet in their window to block out sight of it? Should we ban those damn parasitic sheets?! I could go on, but you get the point.

But the real weakness of this argument is that Stan ignores the benefits and innovation that come from commercial avoidance. New business models develop. Most TV shows are going to DVD quicker than ever before. And then there’s NetFlix, video i-Pod, Net downloads (MovieLink), direct-to-home movies from the studios (MovieBeam); a migration of content to pay-per-view / on-demand cable and satellite channels; and so on. These new models were at least partially developed as a response to the changing nature of the market and the evolving nature of consumer expectations about advertising. THIS IS A GOOD THING. The old model is giving way to new ones that benefit BOTH consumers and producers of content and leads to greater diversity, choice, and potential revenue streams for content creators / distributors. Just because the old business model is going away it does not mean there is anything parasitic about. It really is good ol’ fashion creative destruction.