Preaching to the converted
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Feb 06, 2012 6:10 PM EDT |
I have long believed that the attack by the content "moguls" on internet piracy is fundamentally wrong in both its objectives and solutions. By all means, go after and prosecute those people who are copying IP and reselling the copies for profit, but for the vast remainder, the sums invested in preventing copying for individual use and prosecuting university students, house wives or school kids, just aren't cost effective, produce very negative vibes for the "moguls" and to me are simply plain stupid. In any event, what the content producers forget is that those freebie tv show or movie downloads advertise their products in the same way that the old disk-jockeys advertised singles over the radio - in a bygone era. You find that you don't get subtitles, extra items packaged with the original dvds, and so on; so you very soon want and purchase a set of the originals. A classic case of my point above as far as I am concerned is a Canadian detective show set in the 1890's. I was given a download of an episode and loved it. Not only am I trying to get originals of the series, but I have already ordered copies of the first two books on which the series is based, and I fully expect that we will order more of them. If that "pirated download" isn't efficient advertising, then I'll eat my old, filthy straw gardening hat - without mustard. As I have remarked before, the content "moguls" need to change their marketing strategy to use the internet, not fight it. But it looks like they are going to have to learn the hard way. And I, too, believe that a copyright duration of 60 years is now ridiculous in length. |
| DrGeoffrey Feb 06, 2012 7:01 PM EDT |
Greed is an addiction, much like smoking or drug use. |
| tuxchick Feb 06, 2012 7:54 PM EDT |
You might be interested in this most cathartic rant. I can't post it on LXer because it uses a way lot of cuss words. I think it's one of the best commentaries on the issue. Unless you don't like lots of cuss words. Yarrr. Piracy, copyright, profit, and kiss my ass. http://samuraiknitter.blogspot.com/2012/02/yarrr.html |
| DrGeoffrey Feb 06, 2012 8:47 PM EDT |
@TC, She makes a darn good point. |
| Ridcully Feb 06, 2012 9:01 PM EDT |
Hi Tuxchick.........Just read it and I am about to send the link to quite a few of my friends and acquaintances. I think she's got it pretty right and (apart from the language which probably flows from sheer exasperation - and I have mentally used somewhat milder swear words on occasion about MPAA and RIAA), it's a very good article. The points she makes about tv shows and availability are spot on. There is still this ingrained stupidity at high levels which says: People will wait and in any case, by making them wait we can charge more for a scarce resource. Well, in my books, people today won't wait, and they find ways very quickly around any blockage. Thankyou for sharing that link. |
| tuxchick Feb 07, 2012 12:12 AM EDT |
I read it aloud and felt better :) |
| jezuch Feb 07, 2012 2:50 AM EDT |
From a speech I posted recently (http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightexte...): Quoting:At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesmen of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrims Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich, for the advantage of the greatgrandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom make nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the words of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living. He was protesting changing the copyright term from "Copyright for life or 28 years, whichever longer" to "Copyright for life and 60 years" which is, basically, what we have now. And he was precisely, exactly, perfectly spot-on. In 1841. (I found the link in LWN.net comments. Not my own discovery, but I'm very glad I found it.) |
| caitlyn Feb 08, 2012 2:07 PM EDT |
I'm usually the one who argues in favor of copyright laws, but certainly not in favor of the MPAA or RIAA or bass ackwards bills like SOPA and PIPA. Here is an argument from a musician that resonates with me: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2012-01-25/music/standing-with-... |
| tracyanne Feb 08, 2012 6:26 PM EDT |
You are also the one who proclaimed Megauploads a pirate site, when as we have seen since thier closedown, they and others like them, are more likely used by artists to get their music out there, and get paid as well. And, in fact, as I pointed out, the amount of "piracy" on such sites is way less than on Google and Facebook. |
| Ridcully Feb 08, 2012 6:53 PM EDT |
@caitlyn....read most of the link and while I agree with the principles of copyright (heck, I am a book author and earn some of my income from the fact of copyright), what I strongly disagree with is the fact that large content distributing organisations such as those represented by the MPAA and RIAA have hijacked most of the income from the distributed content so that the producing artists see very little results from their efforts. We already know that if an individual or group can market their IP over the internet directly to the consumers, then they stand to gain far more than by putting it out via the "big labels". I think that move is now happening and of course it threatens the income of the big labels. Note that I use the term "content distributing" not "content producing". I do think that the musician has it wrong on one aspect however. If I understand his article correctly, he blames Google, Wikipedia and other large internet organisations for the successful attack on SOPA and PIPA and considers them as "self serving" (that's my word to sum up his idea that Google et al. were interested only in the crusade against SOPA & PIPA in order to protect their income derived from the piracy of others). As I understand what happened, it was the "mass users of the internet themselves" that led the attack. Google et al. came in at a later time to add support to what was already a massive and winning revolt against the two bills - they certainly were not the instigators of the revolt from what I saw, they simply added their names to an already very successful operation. My take on the whole matter is that the content distributing organisations are still trying to use the same archaic business model that they employed in the 1970's when the internet did not exist. That model doesn't work very successfully any more and I have already said what I believe has to happen in my first post. |
| tracyanne Feb 08, 2012 7:07 PM EDT |
Quoting:My take on the whole matter is that the content distributing organisations are still trying to use the same archaic business model ..... My take is that they are still also trying frame the debate as Google et al vs the content producers, just as they did when SOPA/PIPA were originally stopped. My take is that they are still not listening, as they have very real economic reasons not to. |
| caitlyn Feb 08, 2012 7:14 PM EDT |
I'd love to see your source of information about Megaupload, because AFAICT nothing could be further from the truth. |
| tracyanne Feb 08, 2012 7:48 PM EDT |
I've posted it previously. Interestingly you simply ignored it then. But I posted links to articles by artists, and others who had also looked into who uses sites like Megaiuploads. You''l just have to go back to the thread. But I think it's pretty clear that Megauploads wasn't targeted because they are "pirates", but because they make the corporate gatekeepers irrelevent. |
| Khamul Feb 08, 2012 8:00 PM EDT |
@caitlyn: Go ask Busta Rhymes what he thinks of Megaupload. Or just google for it. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 08, 2012 8:38 PM EDT |
@tracyanne -- I think you nailed that one. - - - - - - Here's what some other artists ("content producers") have to say about this fight: Janis Ian raised a ruckus in the music industry when she published this: The Internet Debacle: An Alternative View (Originally published in Performing Songwriter Magazine, May 2002) http://www.janisian.com/reading/internet.php and Fallout: A Follow Up To The Internet Debacle (Originally published August 1, 2002) http://www.janisian.com/reading/fallout.php (Incidentally, I just recently learned that Janis Ian still "owes" the label for her signature tune (and #1 hit ) "At Seventeen" (that's this one ) Wikipedia wrote:It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and at #3 on the Pop Singles chart in September 1975.[3][4] It also won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1976, beating out the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, and Helen Reddy[5] and was nominated for "Record of the Year" and "Song of the Year". And here's one from an author and publisher: (note, Baen Books. the first financially successful e-publisher, did it all with non-DRM books) Eric Flint’s place on the web: Salvos Against Big Brother http://www.ericflint.net/index.php/2011/09/26/salvos-against... also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Flint#Electronic_publishin... http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp It seems clear that "piracy" is actually good for the artist, even though all the draconian measures against infringement are justified as being necessary to protect the artist. Far as I can tell, once one gets past all the verbiage, all the DRM and all the heavy-handed "anti-piracy", "think of the poor artists" legislative measures that are being pushed so hard are being pushed by the middle-men, for the benefit of the middle-men. Some artists are being suckered by the industry propaganda, or maybe blinded by dreams of super-stardom, but plenty of others have not only seen past the camouflage, but are even learning how to succeed on their own by by-passing the increasingly defunct old-school studios and major labels. |
| Ridcully Feb 08, 2012 9:12 PM EDT |
Oh very, very well said, both Tracyanne and BernardSwiss. Tracyanne, your comment about the irrelevancy of the gatekeepers is an absolute gem - I may frame it. Bernard Swiss, I very strongly agree with your statement Quoting:It seems clear that "piracy" is actually good for the artist, even though all the draconian measures against infringement are justified as being necessary to protect the artist."because it almost exactly echoes my concept that "piracy", as the content distribution moguls like to portray it, is mostly excellent advertising for the artists and their works. As I noted above, my own actions exactly mirror that proposition. DRM is a pointless waste of time and money, especially as it is applied to dvd or cd copying. The moment a new lock-up technique comes out, there is instant reaction and un-lock software hits the internet within days. I know of at least three "illegal" major brands of "copy any disk software" available on the internet and all have excellent reputations; in fact, I have even seen a highly respected journalist (writing on another site) strongly recommend one of these brands of dvd/cd copying software so that users can make backup copies of DRM protected disks. I think we are pretty much all fed up with this stupidity. In point of fact, those that want to make extra personal copies will do so and will find ways of doing it. As the UK found out, where the law is known to be a complete ass, the general population ignores it, does what they wish and sooner or later the law has to be changed to conform with what the people are actually doing. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 08, 2012 9:29 PM EDT |
I think it was Eric Flint (or maybe Cory Doctorow?) first said, (paraphrasing): An artist's biggest problem generally isn't getting paid -- it's getting an audience -- enough people who read or look or listen to, and talk about, the artist's work. Once the artist has an audience, there's all kinds of ways to get money from the audience, but without an audience in the first place... |
| tracyanne Feb 08, 2012 10:45 PM EDT |
From the Janis Ian articleQuoting:Again, from my personal experience: in 37 years as a recording artist, I've created 20+ albums for major labels, and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money. So I make the bulk of my living from live touring... It was an article by Courtney Love, I read about 8 to10 years ago that opened my eyes to how the corporate gatekeepers always manage to find ways to have the artist owe them money. Courtney said many things that Janis's article resonates with. It was actually Courtney's article that was directly responsible for my son and his band not looking to sign with the corporate gatekeepers, and instead going indie. |
| BernardSwiss Feb 08, 2012 11:10 PM EDT |
Yep -- tCourtney Love's speech is a classic Courtney Love Does the Math -- http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ I usually also point people at Steve Albini's article The Problem With Music -- http://www.negativland.com/albini.html I had managed to resist this time (till now :-P anyways) because we were talking about stuff like DRM, "piracy", file-sharing/downloading, and the purpose, rationale and legitimate role of copyright, etc, rather than the music and film industries' notoriously poor ethical standards. But hey -- it doesn't hurt to remind people just what kind of people are behind the incessant pushing of this sort of "moral panic" over "Intellectual Property" issues. - - - - - - - - - - This just in: RIAA still raging against Google, Wikipedia for "misuse of power" in SOPA battle -- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/riaa-still-r... |
| jezuch Feb 09, 2012 2:47 AM EDT |
I think everyone agrees that copyright is good. But over-broad copyright (as we have now already even without SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and friends) is as bad as any tyranny. I'm a pirate? Well, you're a tyrant! |
| gus3 Feb 09, 2012 7:49 AM EDT |
Dickens versus lawyers: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/opinion/dickens-v-lawyers.... PJ@Groklaw had an excellent pull quote: “it is better to suffer a great wrong than to have recourse to the much greater wrong of the law.” |
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