
ASK PG: Could you make a short video about SOPA? - blhack
Part of the problem with a lot of the anti-SOPA stuff coming out right now is that it's coming from early to mid 20s guys who are web developers and the like.<p>No offense (I am a mid 20s guy who is a web developer), but for the general population, it's really easy to just write those people off.<p>YOU, however, are a respected businessman carrying the title of "Successful Venture Capitalist".  A video of you explaining why this is bad is going to carry a <i>LOT</i> more weight than a video of me explaining it.<p>If you have the time, I think the internet would appreciate it a lot.
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pg
I was going to write something about it. Would that be enough? Essays are more
my thing than videos.

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earbitscom
PG, I suspect that you'll do a better job of explaining why SOPA is bad than
some other people, and you have more credibility than most, but taking a stand
against SOPA by itself isn't enough. The root cause of SOPA is a culture of
piracy and a lack of participation by leaders in technology to develop better
enforcement regulations.

Laws like SOPA are going to continue to be proposed until a better solution to
copyright protection is enacted. If we leave those proposals to be constructed
by media companies who don't care as much about the integrity of the internet
as they do about their bottom line, you'll just keep getting new laws that
overreach and threaten our freedoms. The fact that we're facing SOPA is bad,
but it's the direct result of too many people pretending that copyright
protection isn't an important issue that deserves better solutions, both by
arguing against the rights of creators, and failing to proactively help create
a better system of enforcement.

If you really want to do something powerful to stop SOPA-like legislation in
its various forms, your essay should also aim to remind people that we're
facing this legislation because people engage in piracy, and that we need
leaders in the tech community to be more proactive about improving the DMCA if
they want to have a voice in what shape copyright protection takes. It might
seem like SOPA is "the problem" but it's really one party's proposed solution
to a very real issue. An argument for why SOPA is bad without proposals about
how to meet the needs of the party for whom SOPA is a solution only sends
those people back to their misguided drawing board.

I respect the stand you've taken against SOPA. I'll be _really_ excited about
it if you use this time to push the dialog forward on behalf of tech _and_
content creators.

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jey
> The root cause of SOPA is a culture of piracy and a lack of participation by
> leaders in technology to develop better enforcement regulations.

There's a tacit assumption in your post that copyright is still a valid notion
that _should_ be protected. That's not at all clear, and society should really
re-examine the basic assumptions behind copyright. It's possible that
copyright just doesn't make sense anymore and the business models that rely on
copyright monopolies should just be allowed to die.

I'm certainly open to being wrong. What are some valuable things that would be
lost without decent replacements if we abolished copyright monopolies?

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tptacek
Books.

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jey
Empirically doesn't seem to be true, since high-quality fiction and non-
fiction is currently produced even when there isn't a profit motive. There's
still ways to make money from writing, e.g. by asking people to give donations
totalling a certain amount before releasing the next chapter, etc.

~~~
earbitscom
The number of works being written for no financial gain and the number of
people who have successfully made those models work for them combine to be a
tiny fraction of the regular commercial market for books.

If you want real data, survey a couple thousand professional authors at random
and ask them if they would still write if they knew they had no copyright
protection and may have to put together some innovative new release schedule
on a per chapter basis just to have any chance of making some money for their
work.

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jey
This is entirely backwards looking; of course the people who benefit from the
current system will want to keep it in place. The real question is whether
others would step in if everyone who is currently writing books suddenly just
quit. In practice the authors wouldn't have to carry all the load for the
business model innovation; there would be third parties that figure it out and
play a role analogous to the role currently played by publishers, e.g. there
could be a company similar to kickstarter dedicated to helping authors fund
their projects.

We're in early days right now, so the old models still do have a large market
share, but we need to be forward-looking and consider the long-run effects.

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_dps
People certainly get attached to their historical revenues, but let's not
forget that businesses like books, movies, and music all have hit-dominated
economics under the current model and that this has co-evolved with the kinds
of products that are available. Cutting the potential upside of the big hits
does disproportionate damage to the overall industry's expected returns. I
know you were specifically discussing books where initial production costs are
low (in comparison to marketing), but consider what happens to film and
television.

As you say, under a new regime without copyright as-is, new people may come in
to fill the void. However, they may not be real replacements for the old-media
dinosaurs. If it becomes impossible to try to make something like "Lost" with
any reasonable expectation of a return, then products as complex and expensive
as "Lost" simply won't get made. We should be cognizant of this kind of
tradeoff as policy evolves.

I think the recent story about Louis C.K. points out one possible angle of
filling the void; it's comparatively cheap for him to try a stunt like that.
Generally, things produced by individuals with relatively little "refinement"
(sound, graphics, costumes, marketing, etc.) seem like good candidates for
business model innovation. On the other hand, the pilot episode of "Lost" cost
millions of dollars just in production (i.e. before they even had any idea if
it would be popular and got a marketing budget). If we want a new regime that
still allows such projects to be undertaken, Kickstarter-like services and
"Please just pay me $5" probably aren't going to cut it (no disrespect to
Kickstarter or Louis). I don't know if, in the context of big budget projects,
they even represent a meaningful step toward a solution.

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jey
Sure, maybe huge productions like "Lost" would become comparatively rarer, but
is that necessarily bad? More to the point, is it worth the other costs to
society to grant these monopolies?

I don't claim to have the answers at all, but I'm just pointing out that these
questions should be _asked_. It's important to actually weigh the pros and
cons and figure it out rather than assuming that the existing system is
definitely the correct one.

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_dps
Completely agree that the questions should be asked honestly and with an eye
on social benefits and costs. I'm no fan of the copyright system as-is
precisely because I think those tradeoffs are poorly balanced given modern
technology.

As for whether it is "bad" to lose capacity to do things like "Lost" I think
(for my value system) it's clearly very bad even if 9/10 such projects are not
of lasting value. These kinds of mega-projects allow us to push the frontier
of what is possible as entertainment and human expression. If you don't
particularly like "Lost" for artistic reasons (fair enough ;-), then perhaps
substitute anything by Pixar; losing society's ability to make "Wall-E" or
"Up" means a duller, less inspiring world.

Of course, you could similarly disagree with the artistic merits of Pixar
films as being a worthwhile tradeoff. But at some point that line of reasoning
just becomes "I'm personally happy with art made on the cheap by a small group
and no marketing or distribution costs; I'm ok sacrificing everything else."

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steventruong
I like the general direction of the idea, but unfortunately outside of the
tech and startup scene, I doubt many would know of Paul in any way, shape, or
form. He'd have as much weight as you. And I say that while personally keeping
in mind that I don't think the general public, who aren't into the
tech/startup world, would care who he is much like many don't know what an
Android is (or care), but know they own a Samsung or HTC something something.

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nitrogen
It'd be pretty easy for pg to quote the numbers, like, "With Y Combinator,
we've invested in X separate companies with X*n founders, and those companies
have gone on to create a total of Y jobs." Just the big-name YC companies like
Reddit might be enough to get noticed.

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soho33
here is one i found which is done very nicely.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9oeJgrVrq0&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9oeJgrVrq0&feature=related)

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RichardBennett
It's nicely produced, but seriously inaccurate.

