This debate is almost Audible

by Mathew on November 14, 2005 · Comments

The audio service known as Audible.com, which has been around for a number of years and — to be fair — was way out in front of the downloadable audio game, set off a bit of a firestorm when it announced a service that would allow podcasters to distribute their content in its proprietary .aa format, which would make it easier for them to track it and insert ads into the audio stream. Dave Winer of scripting.com, who helped pioneer podcasting along with former MTV video jockey Adam Curry, jumped on the company for using a proprietary format, and said that they were “trying to make podcasting into a replay of previous media.” Om Malik of gigaom.com said that Audible was trying to “hijack a popular trend.”

So far, so good — fair comment and all that. And both men have a point: Audible’s service may have useful features that MP3s do not, such as tracking, but it’s still a proprietary format controlled by one company. Convincing others to use such a proprietary format instead of an open standard is something Microsoft has caught flack for, and quite rightly. In any case, Mitch Ratcliffe — who helped Audible develop the service — waded into the fray and the debate quickly got personal. He responded that Om and Winer were either missing the point or being deliberately unfair to Audible, and then he called Winer a thief for downloading audio without paying for it, and said that he could have sold his weblogs.com service for more than the $2.3-million he got if he had only invested more in it along the way.

Both Om and Dave responded quite reasonably to these unfair jabs, but Ratcliffe has refused to back down. Meanwhile, Nicholas Carr of roughtype.com has taken a refreshingly middle-of-the-road stance on the whole affair. Why do such debates — which are theoretically about the technology — often descend into ad hominem attacks? That’s one for the psychologists to answer.

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    Cross-posting this from the comments in my blog:

    Matthew—Dave made a number of statements about the viability of Audible's business that do relate to his competence to make such statements.

    Pointing out in response to Dave's repeatedly saying (without bothering to read my comments in response, apparently) that Audible is suffering from a downturn—in the face the fact the company reported dramatically improved revenue and customer growth—he doesn't seem to have the business insight to make a sound judgement is, if anything, as direct Dave's use of words like "shitty" to describe a product I worked on. He left money on the table in his own business, which suggests he's not always accurate in his assessment of the performance of a business. Why should someone apologize for pointing that out?

    As I pointed out in another posting, you cannot have a discussion with Dave without it being personal since the technology and business are interchangeable in his view of the world. He made a pronouncement based on his authority to judge how to best monetize technology, so let's do look at his qualifications.

    Also, you say on your blog that I called Dave a thief in my posting. I didn't. Please, read back and tell me where I did that. I pointed out carefully that he suggested stealing content not available under the terms he feels are reasonable. If the terms don't work for him, he should choose not to use the content rather than suggest that, although it's not fair to the creator (his words), he can get the content elsewhere in violation of the creator's terms. That's advocating theft, not thieving.

    This is not to characterize my feelings about copyright, only to examine Dave's position, his qualifications to make certain statements, and the meaning of his words.

    So, no, I would not apologize and it was not an ad hominem attack, because it was not aimed at Dave, but the underpinning of his statements.

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