

Piracy isn't cool: Another "industry" under threat. - RiderOfGiraffes
http://www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk/wordpress/2010/08/03/piracy-isnt-cool/

======
akadruid
What's so frickin surreal about this, is that this new "industry" (selling
digital embroidery designs on the internet) didn't exist until long after
people were already freely sharing such things online. How it suddenly be a
surprise to those involved? Such a surprise that "designers are retiring and
shops are closing". Surely if you've invested in a business for this concept,
it must be a requirement to to have some basic understanding of your market?
Sounds like stupidity is their problem, not a sudden and surprising lack of
co-operation by the entire world.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Not to wade in to the entire debate, and recognising that your stance probably
has some validity (although I regret your method of expression) some of these
designs are copyright and published in magazines. they are now being scanned
and distributed without the designer's permission.

That doesn't necessarily invalidate your entire argument, but it does seem to
be something you haven't addressed.

~~~
akadruid
I think the debate is about the digital representation of the design.
Obviously the art form has existed for far longer than copyright, let alone
the internet. The design which is discussed in the linked article is called
"Summer Blackwork" - Blackwork is a style popular in the 1500s and was
described by Chaucer. Ironically, designs from the 1500s have largely not
survived, due to the corrosive effect of the iron-based dye, and designs from
today will will not survive 500 years either, due to the corrosive effect of
modern laws.

These designs are unusually easy to copy. Unlike, say, a watercolour, it is
simple to create an exactly identical copy (lossless copying) with Roman-era
technology and limited skill. The "intellectual property" can be represented
by an 80x80 bitmap (in the case of the design which is discussed in the linked
article), with perhaps a few additional bits to provide some hints on
different stitches or sequence.

Only in the past few years have people begun selling simple frozen data
representations of these designs (without any physical product) long after the
internet, mass production, modern copyright law and discussion - in fact
largely after people begun freely sharing other commercial digital
representations such as music and film. How someone can invest such a business
while being totally oblivious to the fundamentals of it is beyond me. It would
be like starting a taxi company before discovering there were private cars on
the road or something. In fact, the major of these shops were started by
hobbyists, who were previously artists who would create, evolve and freely
share their designs - and were probably much happier that way. The creation of
this artifical industry by modern copyright law simply adds inefficiency to
the system - there is demonstrably no shortage prior to the laws, and with
modern technology, there is a greater supply of both copyrighted and free
design than at any time in history. The argument for copyright at all seems
weak and the argument for our current infinite copyright system weaker still.
Ditch the lot, have the artists go back to designing and sewing instead of
spending their time scouring the web looking for their "intellectual
property", and everyone will be happier and more creative.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
You say:

    
    
      > Ditch the lot, have the artists go back to designing ...
    

But then how do the designers make money? There is a _huge_ gulf between
really, really good designs, and the stuff that hacks produce, just as there
is a huge gulf between well-designed web sites and the stuff my uncle's
friend's son does (say). There is virtually no market for design to
commission, so how does an excellent designer make money?

Currently designs are produced, then the work is stitched, photographed, and a
kit made up. Sometimes the chart is sold alone (fronted by the photo of the
finished work) and sometimes with the material and thread included. There is a
market for these designs, thin though the margins be.

But now people buy a design, scan both the design and the photo, and make them
freely available. People then download them with no compensation to the
original designer.

I know this is how the world currently is. I know this is what happens. I know
it's not going to change.

But I lament the loss of the craftsperson who can no longer make a living.

If there were no copying then I could go to a shop and purchase a high-quality
design at a reasonable price, with the designer making money on volume. But
there is copying, and many of the best designers are now turning to other
means of making money, often completely unrelated, and less beloved of
themselves and others. I can't afford to commission work, so now I have no
high-quality designs at all.

Tell me how this is a good thing. Tell me how gifted and skilled designers can
make money in the face of wholesale copying. Tell me how I can benefit at a
reasonable cost from the hard-won skills of these talented people.

I don't think I can, and now that's my loss.

(In truth, this isn't my thing, but I know someone who is hurting badly
because of the situation, and I speak for them as best I can.)

~~~
akadruid
The "intellectual property" of art is a blip. For thousands of years, people
have made art. Currently, we are in the odd situation where the is value in
the idea alone, and the artists are not selling art, but selling instructions.
It seems we're heading back towards the artists selling actual art again.

Frankly, I'm kind of on the fence about this. It seems like a nice idea, that
one can build a business on selling ideas on the internet, and kind of callous
that people no longer sufficently value it.

But then I suppose no-one worries how a verbal storyteller is to make a living
in this age of cheap newspapers, or war painters in the age of digital
photography. Sewing instruction salesmen seem destined to go the same way.

------
aufreak3
Checkout Johanna Blakley's talk on how the free copy of design in the fashion
industry hasn't in any way hampered the creativity coming out of it -

[http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashio...](http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html)

Apprently copyright law doesn't apply to fashion designs because clothing is
considered "utilitarian".

~~~
nailer
You need a number of 'points of difference' which varies between jurisdictions
in most parts of the world. People can and have paid out significant amounts
of money to companies whose designs they've ripped off and not sufficiently
altered. Ask someone who actually works in the industry.

I'm most familiar with Australia, so one case:
[http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/19/1026898914955.h...](http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/19/1026898914955.html)
. I understand there's been a few others with Bettina Liano jeans (which are
known for a particular cut that fits wide hipped girls).

------
pierrefar
Follow the "done some sums" link she talks about, and this is a salient bit:

 _This particular design, Summer Blackwork, retails for $9. Of course I have
production costs, wholesale discounts, distributor fees, etc. so I don’t
actually make $9 when I sell one. (wouldn’t that be nice?!)_

That to me suggests the industry is ripe for disruption. For production costs
I assume that means software (Photoshop? I actually don't know) which could,
potentially, be made cheaper. For distributor fees, well that's something the
internet is good at for digital goods like designs. I'd be interested in
seeing a breakdown in the other costs she alluded to.

Another thing to look at: Etsy lists some designs:
[http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_query=machine+...](http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_query=machine+embroidery+designs&filter\[0\]=supplies)

Some of them are download only and it would be good to see how these designers
handle sharing.

------
bugschivers
As someone who actually has some experience in this particular industry (my
mother ran a cross-stitch group for a number of years) I can tell you that the
number one gripe has always been - the price of designs.

It has always been very difficult to make a good living from stitching
supplies, including designs, it's one of those weird disconnects where people
have always seemed to resent paying for them. Kits always sold better than
designs alone and I don't think many people paid out too often if they could
help it, and this was 10 years ago.

My mother had design software back then, so I imagine it is still available
today, and if people can do it themselves, or get a techy relative (lol) to
whip up what they want, why pay for it?

I also doubt that this "piracy" trend is new, the designs back then were just
printed in black and white on paper with number references for the thread
colour, people could just photocopy them or simply hand them around. I imagine
that this kind of behaviour is what is going on now, I mean I think it's
similar to the cry of "everyone should buy their own CDs", stitching is one of
those things where people share deigns.

I mean you take a look at the Etsy listings someone posted, these are discrete
seperate peices, one alphabet letter is $4, all of them are very simple, and
unlikely to be used alone, so you get back to designs being stupidly
expensive. Want to write a name with your Disney character design? It'll all
add up, and then the stitcher needs the threads and equipment on top of the
design, so people share designs, I know Wendy has an A, I could get an L and
so and so has a I and so on.

10 years ago, the large designs were being sold as high as a few hundred £s
each, and people baulked at the price, they baulked at £25, they baulked at
£10 or less sometimes, lol, everything was too expensive, and it's hard to
justify spending a large amount of money on a hobby with little return apart
from as a nice gift.

One interesting thing would be to see who the demographic is these days,
because piracy tends to be associated with the young, but stitching tends to
be the refrain of middle aged and older women, I'd be interested to know, if
it is still the 45+ demographic and if they even realise they ARE "pirating"
designs.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
There are counter-arguments, of course:

* Those who download pirated charts would never had paid for them anyway

* Having seen a pirated chart, the downloader has effectively had the designer "advertised" to them, making it more likely they will buy from them in the future

 _etc._

The parallels with software (and music) are clear, but there are differences
too. It's not clear to me that anything can be done, and the current trend in
the field is that small designers are giving up and not making their work
public at all. The entire field is losing variety, and just the mainstream,
made for the lowest common factor designs are seeing the light of day.

That can't be good for a creative industry.

~~~
nailer
> * Having seen a pirated chart, the downloader has effectively had the
> designer "advertised" to them, making it more likely they will buy from them
> in the future

The creator of a work has a right to determine who they distribute it too.
Most people on HN wouldn't like it if somebody ripped the source to their web
app as a form of 'advertising'. This is no different.

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
You seem to have completely missed the tenor of my point. These are arguments
I've already heard, and which I consider hackneyed. They are quite
specifically not arguments I agree with.

My apologies for not making that clearer.

ADDED IN EDIT:

Having said that, the general consensus seems to be that the artist _does not
in fact have that right._ The "modern" consensus seems to be that those who
produce anything easily copied can only expect it to be copied, and it is
unreasonable and stupid for them to expect to have any control at all over the
distribution.

~~~
ynniv
_These are arguments I've already heard, and which I consider hackneyed._

One problem with dismissing the argument that downloaders would not have been
purchasers is that a download count doesn't accurately reflect usage of the
item. Producers cry in horror that their "content" was downloaded 100,000
times, but each user may have inadvertently been double or triple counted
based on multiple computers, failed saves, forgotten file locations, or
mistaken download methods (eg, view image versus save to disk).

On top of this, hoarding behavior causes people to collect things for which
the perceived value (something) is greater than the cost (free / time to
download). Hoarders will likely never use the item, but will show up as a
download (or two or three) anyway.

Lastly, I doubt this to be the case in this situation, but artificially
increasing a download count for the purpose of inflating possible damages is
blindingly simple.

In short, I agree with your addendum, that anything which can be copied will
be copied, and copies have nothing to do with sales unless you collect money
at the point of copy. The more time spent complaining about loss, the less of
a business and more of a funded hobby you are (and wouldn't we all like to
have funded hobbies).

------
buro9
All I could think of was Linus: [http://torvalds-
family.blogspot.com/2010/01/embroidery-gaah....](http://torvalds-
family.blogspot.com/2010/01/embroidery-gaah.html)

------
JacobAldridge
While this doesn't add much in the way of new approaches to old pro-piracy
arguments, this point did make me think: _"people consider that pop stars make
so much money they won’t miss the few pounds from file-sharers"_

From a macro economic perspective, can the economy of a society be improved
once everything that can be shared for free (or negligible cost) is done so?
Could, would or should open-source gamers create Starcraft 2?

~~~
eru
There are some fine open source games already out there.

A viable strategy seems to be to open the program, but keep the assets (like
graphics and music and so on) proprietary.

~~~
pierrefar
One strategy I hope to see tried (and succeed!) is an open source game with a
central for-pay server that sets up world-wide games. You can choose to use it
or not (but no doubt it will be the largest community for the game).

~~~
akadruid
The cost model to this is proven - there are MMOs that operate this way
already, with monthly subscriptions but no upfront cost. EVE Online works like
this - you start with a free trial for 21 days, then pay for each 30 days of
access to the server. There are optional boxsets, but with those you are
essentially paying for the included 60 days of access and some physical items,
rather than the game.

------
tomjen3
Does it matter? There are so many designs out there, who cares if there isn't
going to be any new ones?

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Who cares if there's no new music, or new paintings, or new sculptures. There
are plenty out there already.

Who cares if there are no live musicians, we have plenty of recordings. Who
cares if there are no sculptors, we have 3D printing machines that can scan
existing objects and reproduce them perfectly.

~~~
akadruid
The argument that art will disappear without copyright has been
comprehensively disproven. People have been infringing copyright on musical
recordings with increasing efficiency for decades. If this argument were
correct, the Top 40 would be the Top 5 by now, but it turns out there are
currently more people creating more music than any time in history. Equally,
by that argument, music would have been a rare oddity prior to copyright (it
wasn't). Copyright, it seems, is useful to encourage the development of
publishing businesses, but has a negative impact on the creation of art,
primarly by muting the influnce of previous artists. The lower cost of
distribution, brought on by technological change, is clearly a benefit to both
artists and art lovers, but copyright in its current form is a net negative
for society.

On the other hand, who cares if the middlemen get paid to distribute frozen
copies of art, even if such distribution is to cheap to measure?

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Consider the possibility that while there is more music now, it is less good.
Consider that there are brilliant musicians who no longer make music because
they cannot afford to do so. We lose out, we get the crap, because the best
musicians no longer produce in a form we have access to.

Yes there was a lot of music before copyright, but copying was less efficient
back then, so your arguments don't really make the watertight case you seem to
think they do.

I know some brilliant musicians who have turned to other means to live, and
who no longer use their gifts, talents and skills in music. Instead there's
vast amounts of crap floating around, with the occasional gem that's hard to
find.

I'm not saying copyright made it better, because there were the toads and
slimey bastards in the middle, taking their excessive cut and squeezing the
artists. What I'd really like to see is the best artists (not just musicians)
being fairly compensated, just as I'd like to see the best programmers getting
the recognition they deserve.

It doesn't happen, it probably won't happen. Certainly it never has happened.

But instead of technology just making the copying easier, wouldn't it be nice
if it also made the proper compensation of artists possible.

Won't happen. The very people who could make it happen are the ones who claim
it doesn't matter.

------
macemoneta
Why does everyone forget that copyrighted content can be shared if the license
allows it? Copyright does not automatically prohibit sharing.

    
    
       http://creativecommons.org/about/
       http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical
    

The real problem is that content creators frequently don't make finding the
license easy - if they even use one.

~~~
mattmanser
How is that the real problem?

Who said anyone forgot? The article doesn't. It clearly says the author of the
content found their work being shared without consent.

The real problem is someone is ripping off someone else's work.

Leaving aside the never ending discussion on piracy, I don't get what your
point is.

~~~
macemoneta
My comment was in reply to the author's statement that "sharing a copyrighted
design is theft". This is clearly false.

------
rth5yh
...and there you were thinking piracy was just punk kids.

~~~
harshpotatoes
Well, it's not really clear who's doing the pirating, but I can say as a
matter my ownn observed opinion that crocheting, knitting, and embroidery are
still popular hobbies for young women. I think this because I know of several
different 20something girls who like these crafts, and whom walk in different
social circles. I also know the local roller derby team has a weekly
knitting/embroidery meeting (like a knitting circle for 20something
alternative girls).

