
In Defense of Piracy - makimaki
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122367645363324303.html
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tdavis
At least this article tries to point out that there's a significant difference
between "real" piracy and "who gives a damn" piracy. One of the biggest
problems still remaining today is the fact that all the power is with the
recording companies, at least when it comes to music; it's not with the people
who actually created the work.

Somehow, I doubt Prince would care that some baby is dancing to a grainy
recording of one of his songs. Except for Metallica, I can't really think of
an artist or band who would give a damn. These days many artists are releasing
their work online for free or for... whatever you want to pay! The money is in
live shows and the same people who go to live shows are generally the people
who will pay for an album regardless of cost.

I buy a possibly excessive amount of music. I also still pirate music on rare
occasions where a band or artist is new to me and I want to see if those two
songs I heard on Pandora were a fluke or they really are that awesome before
buying a whole album (or discography, if it comes to that).

What about TV? I pirate TV shows _constantly_. I pay for cable; I consider
that good enough to justify not wasting 1/3 of my life watching commercials
for shit I couldn't care less about; when I browse the Internet I don't have
to wait for an ad to finish playing before reading whatever I went to the site
for. If more TV shows were available for purchasable download, were priced
less ridiculously (why should I pay $80 for the whole season 1 ep at a time
when the DVD set is $40?), and were always WS HD, I would stop doing it. When
I really like a show I buy it on DVD. Movies are essentially the same deal,
except replace commercials with "it costs money just to find out if it's worth
watching in the first place."

As far as I'm concerned, piracy is such a big thing now only because it's
finally possible to pirate this stuff. Society hasn't changed significantly.
There's no secret plot. People are just slowly realizing that they don't have
to waste time and money just to find out if they find something entertaining
or good enough to warrant their time and money. Sure, there are people who are
going to pirate _everything_ and _never_ buy it, but those same people had
shoe boxes full of tapes they recorded off the radio. Who cares? It's an
insignificant minority. If the record and movie companies are failing it's
because people have decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate
purchase... then they download them and realize they're not worthy of
purchase, period.

~~~
shiranaihito
> If the record and movie companies are failing it's because people have
> decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate purchase... then they
> download them and realize they're not worthy of purchase, period.

It would be great if studios only produced great music and movies.

Until now, a lot of crap has been produced knowingly because all they need is
people going into theatres & music videos with scantily clad women waving
their asses around.

But in their quest for quality, how could the studios always choose only the
productions which will actually rise to true greatness?

A lot of good stuff would never make it through, but maybe that's alright
since no one has enough time and money to discover all the music he would fall
in love with anyway.

You and I might enjoy high quality entertainment, but what about Most People?

They're the ones buying and liking all that crap that has very little merit
other than some random hot guy/girl being fascinating?

It's problematic. Smart people want quality, but most people will settle for
whatever's rammed down their throats.

As for me, I actually buy quite a lot of music that I really like, because I
want it at maximum quality.

I'm not as innocent when it comes to movies. Sometimes I download them, but
rarely go see them in theatres.

Sometimes I start watching a downloaded movie but stop because it's not good
enough.

Sometimes, a downloaded movie happens to be really enjoyable, but will I go
buy it after watching?

Nope..

The problem is that the re-use value of good music is pretty much infinite,
but you'll rarely want to watch even a good movie again, so after seeing it,
its value drops close to zero.

~~~
tdavis
You bring up some good points (although a couple actual paragraphs would have
been easier to read ;), but I have to personally disagree on the replay value
of good movies. I own many movies that I have watched countless times; I
recently had to buy Fight Club again because we watch it a few times a week
and the DVD was just worn out. There are numerous other amazing films that I
can't get enough of as well. I have no idea how many times I've watched The
Shawshank Redemption, as another example. I own movies like Transformers not
because they're perfect filmmaking, but because I like to relive my younger
years sometimes.

In general I agree that music has far greater replay value. I think that's
partially because it's something that can be enjoyed basically any time,
anywhere. I can't think of the last time I worked in silence for more than a
few minutes at a time. That being said, I do my best to "pay tribute" to
quality media by purchasing it. I'm sure I own quite a few movies I haven't
seen in years, but I bought them because they struck me as worth paying for.

Finally, I think at this stage piracy (well, _quality_ piracy at least) is
still something that Joe Public isn't savvy enough to pick up. By the time the
people who pay to consume all the horrible media out there (like, 90% of the
total), I would hope a sane and intelligent response to the piracy issue will
have found its way to "Big Entertainment."

~~~
shiranaihito
Yeah sorry about the lack of paragraphs. I always get this nagging feeling
that I need to add empty rows for.. clarity :)

You watch Fight Club several times per week?! I can't understand the
motivation, but hey, people are different!

I've seen Fight Club exactly once, in a theatre, but there are movies I've
seen many times, and will watch again. One such movie is Leon ("The
Professional"). In case you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour.. It has to
be the director's cut though.

> Finally, I think at this stage piracy (well, quality piracy at least) is
> still something that Joe Public isn't savvy enough to pick up.

Maybe, but many Joe Publics are already downloading movies much like you and
I, and at least see some of the good stuff in there while looking for Saw
XVII.

They might download quality entertainment by accident. Of course, they might
just as well stop watching it too, when quality fails to keep their attention.

Anyways, Transformers was legendary for me too, and the movie was enjoyable,
with some of the coolest 3D ever. I feared Michael Bay would just totally ruin
it.

~~~
tdavis
Fight Club helps keep us grounded in a sense. As for Léon, it is an amazing
film to be sure. Transformers I first saw on DVD after it had been released.
Maybe it was due in part to my circumstances at the time, but it was somehow a
profoundly surreal experience.

------
radley
Lessig FTW

 _Deregulate amateur remix:_ We need to restore a copyright law that leaves
"amateur creativity" free from regulation. Before the 20th century, this
culture flourished. The 21st century could see its return. Digital
technologies have democratized the ability to create and re-create the culture
around us. Where the creativity is an amateur remix, the law should leave it
alone. It should deregulate amateur remix.

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99Frogs
The statistic that 95% of pirated music would not have been purchased, had
piracy not been an option should be mentioned more often. The fact that
someone violates copyright by pulling down the complete beach boys does not
suggest that he would have purchased a $100 box set. The ease of piracy is the
impetus. He would have happily gone without the product.

~~~
netcan
Regardless, if piracy becomes legal & socially acceptable, it will remove an
reason to buy a $100 box set at any point. You may still have your 95% rule,
but you'll just have an average person 'owning' 2000% more music then they
would have otherwise with 0% of the cost.

~~~
99Frogs
I think it may settle at illegal and socially acceptable, much like driving
faster than the speed limit - punishable in rare cases. And people will feel
about as much shame for having done it.

I'm not arguing that piracy should be legal, but that it should be just about
as illegal as speeding.

~~~
netcan
That kind of a fuzzy equilibrium is what we're at now. Most people do it.
Officially you can't. If you do it to make money, they'll come after you. Some
people think it's wrong. Lots of others think its kinda wrong.

What you do get on these sorts of threads everywhere from here to spamblog is
people saying something along the lines of: I pirate some things that I want
to listen to. If I like it/it's good enough/it's reasonably priced/ I like the
artist, I buy a copy.

The power is in the hands of the 'consumer.' They decide if they want to pay
or not based on their own criteria. That's not ownership! That's beerware.
Consumption is not tied to purchase.

The record companies & friends play up to this trying to increase the moral
pressure. This seems to have the effect of increasing the above sentiment.

Anyway we're stuck in this no man's land. How sustainable is it? I don't think
it is sustainable at all. We are following the music lives in a cd protocol
like a cargo cult. People are going to buy cds of artists they like because
they remember that is how they used to do it. That memory will fade, the cd
player will disappear & we'll still be buying licences in the form of a cd? I
don't think so. What's the alternative? Buy the license online? People will go
online & literally make a donation to a millionaire?

Something's gotta give

*If there is a proper recession, maybe we'll see donations to artists in the form of cd purchases go down with donations to normal charities.

------
jgfoot
"Adapted from "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig, to be published by The Penguin Press
on Oct. 16, 2008. <i>Copyright by Lawrence Lessig, 2008. Printed by
arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.</i>"

Holy crap, irony overload. Publishing this remixed adaptation required
Lessig's publisher's permission.

------
mseebach
That's not a defence of piracy, it's a very reasonable argument that a subset
of what we today call pirates, aren't.

~~~
mariorz
Well, the subset that doesn't do looting at sea, aren't.

------
mkn
_Tax-code complexity regulating income is bad enough; tax-code complexity
regulating speech is a First Amendment nightmare._

The snippet from the article seems to suggest that the nightmare is due to the
special sanctity of the First Amendment as compared to the Fourth. Rather, the
nightmare comes from the burden of applying such a complex law as the DMCA
with the frequency that would be necessary to enforce its provisions. It's the
difference between doing your taxes once (or four times) per year vs. applying
the DMCA every single time you turn the radio on.

I like my Fourth Amendment, too, thank-you-very-much.

Don't know why I felt compelled to point this all out.

------
ericwaller
_On their view of the law, she is liable to a fine of up to $150,000 for
sharing 29 seconds of Holden dancing_

My biggest problem with these piracy disputes is the amount of damages
involved. I realize that the record companies are claiming that they missed
out on sales, but imagine this: You run a red light (breaking the law) and hit
an executive on the way to a big client meeting. Are you liable for his
missing out on a multimillion dollar contract?

------
Herring
If videos like Ms. Lenz's are so valuable, why aren't they & others like them
being shared at mininova? One glance at the popular file sharing sites should
convince anyone that piracy doesn't need the wsj's defense.

Clearly we value this "remix culture" a lot less than we think we're supposed
to.

~~~
pmjordan
Something doesn't have to have mass appeal to be valuable. In fact, that's
pretty much what he's arguing for: amateur remixes, which might not have the
reach of something with publisher backing, should not be illegal and
punishable with extortion-style fines.

------
fallentimes
Buying albums doesn't support the talent - it supports the suits. Margin wise,
artists make jack shit from albums. They make significantly higher cuts from
touring, but even that isn't enough.

I wish there was an easy way to donate to the bands directly. No TPS and no
big labels taking 90%. Clean, easy, and direct. Tipjoy are you listening? :)

~~~
sgibat
Of course, most people don't pirate for that reason -- they do it because it's
free.

A site for any band to upload their music to be available for free with a
built in donation system would be popular indeed. Maybe even profitable?

------
known
Sometimes

Piracy = Marketing

------
pavelludiq
The song is "futuristic sex robots - fuck the mpaa"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLB8wysMbY>

------
josefresco
How about the argument that the branding of online 'theft' as 'piracy' has
been a boon to the offline Pirate product/apparel business?

