Know when to fold 'em.

I know. With that title, I've put a tune in your head you'll not get out for some time. Still, you could do worse than a 70s classic from Kenny Rogers. In any event, my point, and I do have one, is that that lyric has never been more appropriate in a business context than it is to the changes made possible by today's electronic media.

The Pirate Bay case (click here if you are not familiar) came to a conclusion today, complete with jail time and seven figure fines for its founders. So now the entertainment industry has a win in their column based on foggy reasoning, short-sighted strategy, and a desperate effort to hold on to their buggy whip business plans. Now they just have to leverage that surprising win by filing the same suit against thousands of copycats.

Good luck with all that.

The newspaper industry is no different. Teetering on extinction, there has been no shortage of attempts – legislative and otherwise – to support the newspapers' clearly flawed business model. Think of the effort to start a newspaper today with new investors: The ten-second pitch for venture capitalists? "We deliver news and opinion late, in a cumbersome and environmentally suspect format to individuals whose iterative feedback takes days and requires postage."

Well, sign me up!

From efforts to reduce regulation (rarely a bad thing in my mind) to subsidize newspapers through tax policy (rarely a good thing in my mind) the concept of a newspaper is so central to our culture, or so it is argued, that its simply 'too big to fail'.

Like banks. Or car manufacturers.

It's long past time to simply face the reality that newspapers, records, movies and other media are competing not just with new media, but in a brand new context. Traditional distribution methods for everything from news to music to movies are obsolete, and there isn't a tort or an injunction or any lawyer in the world that can stop it.

One of my favorite quotes on the subject is from US Army General Eric Shinseki: “If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less."

Or perhaps more succinctly put by that other sage, "You gotta know when to walk away, and know when to run."

UPDATE 4-23: Excellent opinion piece regarding Susan Boyle sensation that indicates that the amazing viral nature of the clip has yet to monetize for YouTube or ITV as a result of the battles between old, new, and newer revenue models.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Creative Destruction Happens Quickly; Those Who Wait End Up In The Rubble (techdirt.com)