NEXT - Nexicon’s Corporate Blog

It is no secret that the business of sending pirates (fans) electronic cease-and-desist notices has been poisoned by companies and organizations that do not possess the knowledge, experience, or technology to support their “solutions.”  Since we started our GetAmnesty venture along with PayArtists.com, we have witnessed some very interesting things - some things more eye-opening then others, and some things so unbelievable that they likely won’t find their way into this blog. Let’s just say that I have been personally called by the highest level of executives in some of the country’s largest ISPs.

Bottom line - Is the DMCA working?  Yes, the DMCA is working, however according to the ISPs we have spoken with, Nexicon is the first company to really understand the law, and to actually send tangible, valid, and accurate DMCA notices. These data points come from one of the five largest ISPs in the US.  We are quite proud to hear this, not for ‘bragging rights’ but because we are accomplishing the goal of protecting content owner’s digital media while proving what the music industry’s own organization has been doing is wrong.

One of the main reasons we developed our product suite was because the largest artists’ brand names, along with the industry itself was becoming diluted by a thought process that was not consistent with the decade we are presently in. Last week, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal which stated that an industry organization is attempting to duplicate the GetAmnesty business process; one that this organization said themselves was crazy and would not work. It appears now that this organization has had a change of heart. We are of course pleased that the entire business process of sending mass electronic infringement notices to ISP’s is pending the patent filed by Nexicon several months ago. Stay tuned.

Sending DMCA notices to ISP’s has been a significant challenge to providers for many reasons. False positives, misrepresented evidence, incorrect information have caused ISP’s to spend millions of dollars each year chasing their tails in an attempt to maintain their safe harbor.  Our peers have not had quality in mind when devising their DMCA notice solutions. All digital piracy vendors with the exception of Nexicon have sent DMCA notices to printers and other devices on the Internet which are innocent, due to the very nature of their existence.  No other entity can deliver the results we are providing. Soon, I will be blogging about the numbers and statistics proving that for the first time in our digital age we are having a monumental impact on piracy for a copyright holder. We can clearly see the trend in digital piracy decreasing for this artist, while legitimate digital sales are increasing.

We want artists, copyright holders and Joe Downloader not to perceive us as copyright cops, but as the entity that is trying to bring the artists and the fans back together. Disintermediation is the new buzzword of the day, and Nexicon will power it for the music industry. We recognize that the vast majority of downloaders are fans and not malicious pirates. We need to help educate the rights holders of this fact as much as we need to educate the illegal downloaders. Maybe our vision will be realized soon, and that we won’t need to call file-sharing “illegal”. Yes, we are planning to legalize file-sharing in a monetization scenario that is already planned. Reading the WSJ article saddens me in that that once again, industry people are going to dilute the very brands they’re trying to represent - even more so by doing something in a manner and approach that is not well thought out.

Nexicon is together with other strategic partners paving the way to the next generation of digital distribution where Apple will most certainly begin to take notice of our company. To the Apple executives who read my blog: The day has come. There is a new kid on the block, with an idea and a mindset for the next generation, and we have the people, resources, and technology to make it happen. I have seen time after time concepts for competing with Apple that were DOA and failed. We know exactly why and how. At some point I remember thinking, “I wish I was head of Strategy for Microsoft’s Zune project; with that budget and the right mindset and creativity, I could actually have purchased the loyalty of most Apple customers.” In the telecom world we call that “customer acquisition cost.”

After the Christmas holiday, my blog postings will again become more frequent. So far things continue to go very well for Nexicon. While the country is now officially in a recession, I can assure everyone that we are not feeling any pressure. Never before have we had as strong a pipeline as we do now.

My next blog might put some pressure onto large corporation’s stock prices, as I will address their stockholders and investors and question the integrity of the executives for electing not to follow Nexicon’s recommendations, by highlighting the impact of their choices and what “could have been”, all supported by real data.

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and prosperous New Year, filled with all the good things you’ve worked hard to accomplish.

People have called us “pirate hunters”, “piracy cops”, “copyright cops” and many more, but none of those seem accurate anymore. Let me share with you what I believe we will be called - the “consumer hunter”, or as some call consumers today, “Users”.  User is a terrible word, made up by confused copyright owners who have witnessed sales drop so much that they feel the need to come up with something that sounds smart. Do we really believe that people have become users and are no longer consumers?  Anyone with a bit of common sense knows that they are still very much consumers (at least the bills in my mailbox daily tell me I am.)  Many copyright owners are under the mistaken belief that people should buy their products and not get them for free. What have these copyright owners done to influence this? The ones that are clients of Nexicon are spoken for, the “smart” copyright owners, but there are the ones that turn their nose up and say, “we don’t believe in piracy.”

Once upon the time, I had a meeting in Silicon Valley with one of the world’s largest software vendors. I will never forget how sorry I felt for this company’s shareholders during the course of the meeting, and how much I wished I could reply to what was said by the company’s executives. I was told that people downloading their software from P2P file-sharing protocols would never pay for their products anyway, so they were not concerned that each day, over 1 million illegal downloads on Bit Torrent alone was taking place. After one year, this number has grown to 3.3 million downloads each day on the new version of this one product.  As I was sitting in the meeting, I debated whether or not to tell them that their point of view was completely wrong or should I wait one year until their sales had fallen, the stock price had dropped, and then tell them, “I told you so.”

Imagine if this company’s shareholders knew what was said by these executives, and how they mishandled the potential for converting the digital piracy of their assets into revenue, not to mention the missed messaging and educational opportunity that could have kept daily illegal downloads to 1 million or less.  My question to the shareholders and executives of this company would have been simple.  Would you rather give away the software for free, or retain 50%, 60%, or 70% of the retail value?  I did a test the other day with this company’s product line, and I attempted to actually buy the product while at the same time, downloading it from the Internet with our software agents. The result was astonishing - I had the pirated version completely downloaded, installed and ready to use in 11 minutes, and I had the purchased, legal version installed and ready to use in 34 minutes. Amazing - 23 minutes saved by pirating it, and honestly it was easier than finding the product, buying it, getting the license and jumping through multiple hoops to receive it by needing to call in an order number. For me, 23 minutes is a lot of time, as I woke up this morning after 3 hours of sleep realizing that there had been an election - not to mention the pirated version would have saved me $1,699.

So with all of this said, what is the market coming to?  Will we be able to sell our products in the future? Will industry giants continue to die?  Will Apple still be the world’s biggest pirate? Yes, Apple is in my eyes the world’s largest pirate, and I will blog later about this topic and show you real data supporting this statement delivered from one of our products.

I have good news and bad news, depending on from what angle it is received. The good news is that there is a sign of change in the market, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The bad news for some is that Nexicon is the one shining the light in the tunnel. We strongly believe that the old fashioned retail stores and similar market places are still out there. Nexicon has identified them and we will in the next several years enable them and bridge the gap that exists today by filling the void in the marketplace that currently inhibits us (and them) from realizing their full potential without extreme pragmatic, creative and long term visions. Stay tuned.

We are at the point in Nexicon’s history where we are starting to make waves in the marketplace. It has taken an enormous amount of hard work and self-development to get here, but we set out on a mission and we are about to achieve it and make history. Thank you all for the long-term support which without it we would not be here today.