

You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You - Garbage
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-never-kill-piracy-and-piracy-will-never-kill-you/

======
lloeki
_> And here’s something no one has stopped to consider: Maybe making movies is
too damn expensive. Or rather, far more expensive than it needs to be._

Hmm. I went to the theatre (first time since a long time as the experience
feels antiquated and overpriced) with friends to see Sherlock Holmes, and the
opening scene perfectly exemplifies the point: for about ten second you see a
shot of the cathedral of Strasbourg. Half of it consists of a CGI explosion. I
live there, and to produce this shot, they locked this part of the city for
_one week_.

Ten seconds. One week. A whole team plus equipment. To the other side of the
world. _Seriously_.

When seeing the scene I found that downright shocking, especially given the
10€ hole burning my pocket.

By comparison it takes Turn10 Studios _three days_ [0] locally to gather
enough information on a track to subsequently work on for one year. That's a
full-length, five kilometer track.

I know this is not the same, and various other things come into play, but I
just can't help but have an alarm bell ringing when I see movie production
costs. See for yourself (budget in $):

    
    
        - 2001 and Star Wars: 10 million each
        - Independence Day: 75 million
        - Transformers: 150 million
        - Kill Bill 1+2: 50 million
        - Jurassic Park: 65 million
        - King Kong: 200 million
        - Blues Brothers: 30 million
        - Fast & Furious: 90 million
        - The Fellowship of the Ring: 100 million
        - Harry Potter: ~150 million each
        - Full Metal Jacket: 15 million
        - Jarhead: 72 million
        - Apocalypse Now: 30 million
        - Black Hawk Down: 90 million
        - Terminator: 6 million
        - The Matrix: 60 million
        - Terminator 2: 100 million
        - Casino Royale: 100 million
        - Quantum of Solace: 230 million
        - Sherlock Holmes: 125 million
        - The Godfather: 6.5 million
    

I know those $ do not mean the same across time, but still, you can see going
from simple to double produces crap (CS vs QoS), or produces twice the length
at arguably the same 'quality' (whatever that means) for a significantly
smaller cost (LotR vs HP). I don't see either why F&F costs thrice as much as
BB, and almost twice as much as KB.

Bottom line: MAFIAA, please produce non-crap and control your costs instead of
blaming piracy.

[0] <http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/underthehood4/>

~~~
ithought
The biggest real cost of a film is film; the stock, its processing and the
prints to be distributed to the theaters.

This makes the distribution channel narrow and the market is such that
spending more money almost always mean breaking even or earning tens of
millions. The financials and agreements are so convoluted and unfair, that
most actors and producers want to get paid upfront because they know the
system is rigged against them.

Shooting big expensive grandiose scenes is useful when your business model is
based on excessive production expenses.

However, we are at that point where technology for pre-visualization and
digital blueprinting could radically change how a film is made. A famous
effects artists and inventor is going back to 70s style sets and models but
using modern high frame rate cameras etc. He is building a giant digital-
virtual studio. And he's the type of person with the background, skill and
clout to change how this technology is viewed and used in the industry.

The future is fair productions where major participants can defer compensation
for backend, digital filmmaking, digital film distribution to theaters, end
the studio's cartel of exorbitant rates, use pre-viz, blueprinting, CG, mix of
modern and classic technology.

------
alan_cx
Yes, people will pay.

Its way beyond a thought experiment, its been proved. Proved to the tune of
$1m.

This whole debate is over now.

Louis CK showed the planet exactly how it should be done, and no one seems to
have noticed, cared or learned the lessons. And he is a comedian who doesn't
even know how torrents work! (Also, a damn fine comedian) No one has any
excuse now. Right product, right price, easy to get and keep. Simple.

He sold his "DVD" on line for $5, £3.40 ish in my UK money. Normally that
would be £10 or more here. Dont know how much a new DVD would cost in the US.
Louis made $1m in 12 days. The full break down of that is on his site. (He
roughly divided the money evenly 4 ways: staff bonus, costs, charity and
Louis. LCK actually too slightly less than 25%.)

What these media companies are desperate to support is that difference of
£6.60 going to big old businesses for absolutely nothing what so ever. We
idiots just give them that money. Louis on the other hand made good money,
none went to the scavengers, and he is a happy bunny. We all got a great
product for what I reckon is a very fair price, and Louis got a great pay
cheque. I imagine the government will also get a load of tax too.

So, why is this still an issue? Why are governments still trying to
criminalise their citizens to protect a dying business model? Its like
propping up the asbestos industry by arresting people with breathing problems.
(yeah, I know, but ...)

I suppose its because government make a huge amount of tax out of this, and
many people are employed doing what turns out to be redundant jobs. Louis CK's
model takes most of that away. Oooops.

Frankly, the US gov, above all, is supporting and enforcing what amounts to
old style socialism by the back door, but now using state threats and power to
force it on its citizens. Rather then using public money to create and prop up
jobs, and a tax merry go round, they use the cheaper and easier legal system
to prop up inefficient flabby tax and job creating and maintenance schemes. Or
Hollywood as its more commonly known. But the money comes directly from the
consumer. Its a tax. Brilliant scam.

See it for what it is people. It would be more honest for the government to
create a Hollywood tax for every one to pay.

What is sad is that thousands of people will have their lives ruined by all
this. Families destroyed, people in jail and ruined. The US authorities
actually extradite people like they are terrorists for these "crimes". What's
next, rendition for people who live in countries who don't bow to American
threats? All this so Hollywood types can cream off a profit.

How is this not the biggest scandal of the 21st century? There is something
very, very wrong here. It is sickening.

Is this really what artists what? I doubt Louis CK does.

Hope that wasn't to much of a rant... :)

------
yason
I wish MAFIAA would realize one day that I've never bought a cd, vhs, or dvd
product (or a game or application, for that matter) simply because I couldn't
have been able to copy it from somewhere.

Everytime I've bought something has been because I've realized that it's a
good album, movie or game that I want to _own_. Emphasis here: I want to own
the release. This means it doesn't matter if I can get it free because I want
to buy it. It also means that subscriptions or DRM remove me from owning what
I want to own. I pay for the ability to own what I bought, and for that only.

Now, getting to know what I want to own is a tricky question. I may have read
a game review and known that I want to buy tht game. Perhaps a movie was made
by someone I know makes good movies, and I know I want to own his next film.
Or I hear music at my friend's place and decide that I want that album too. Or
I "pirate" releases from a friend or Piratebay or usenet and realize hey this
is good stuff, why don't I look up a collection box or greatest hits album
somewhere.

However, what has changed is that I no longer want physical cds, dvds, or game
boxes. I want what Piratebay offers: downloadable .avi files well-transcoded
or flac files without DRM. And I want it easily, from the same unencumbered
source instead of hunting for online music stores and trying to figure out if
they offer what I want in the right format.

I wonder what happened if Piratebay offered a Pay button on top. You could, if
you wanted, pay an amount you think it's worth for what ever downloads you
liked. There would be no minimum or set prices because you can get what you
want for free anyway. The money would go to the production company or whoever
owns the copyright to the song/film/game in question. It would be absolutely
net-positive for the copyright owners because the worst that can happen is
they get nothing which is exactly what they have now. If you have enough
channels that people can use to pay you, a number of them actually will do
that, because it's easy and people like to pay for what they want to own.

~~~
flixic
"I wonder what happened if Piratebay offered a Pay button on top."

Can't happen, won't happen. Not only because finding who to pay to would be a
hassle, but regulating that would be a disaster. Who get's to enter PayPal
email? The uploader? Then I would put in mine.

But more importantly, even if money was sent to verified addresses, it would
still likely be illegal. Studios couldn't take the money without accounting
for that, and accounting would mean endorsement, and they surely don't want to
endorse it in any way at all.

~~~
unavoidable
It's a thought experiment, I think you don't have to be so literal. The point
is that people will probably pay for their content if they are given the
freedom to actually use it as they see fit.

~~~
lloeki
Having such a button on TPB is a thought experiment, but the process is
exactly why I'm shifting away from physical media and buying high quality no-
DRM music from iTunes. This is also why I won't buy movies or shows from
iTunes, ever, until they drop DRM. I just wish the whole content was
aggregated in one worldwide store instead of having segregated regional
stores.

If I buy something today, I want to have 1. the best possible quality, 2. be
able to read it now on whatever device I want (which means transcoding it to
any size I want as I don't want to fill my phone with a 20GB 1080p movie), and
3. to be able to pick it up ten, twenty years down the road and read it as is.
Anything else is equivalent to trying to sell me the same content twice and
absolutely unacceptable.

------
jmtame
I like that they focused on "this is a service problem." This is something
Alexis Ohanian mentioned when he started talking about SOPA and PIPA on TV,
and I recall that point being dismissed pretty quickly (although unfairly).
This article addresses the core problem of convenience. It reminds me of why
Grooveshark exists: their mission statement is to compete with piracy by
offering a better experience than downloading or torrenting music. It actually
delivers on that. The artists still get paid while Grooveshark legally and
safely operates within the DMCA. For $5/month, I can listen to all the music I
want on my mobile device using Grooveshark, and I know that they're going to
take care of all the royalty distribution going on in the background.

~~~
KPLauritzen
Actually, Grooveshark is not doing a great job of paying their royalities:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark#Licensing_and_criti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooveshark#Licensing_and_criticism)
I think spotify are a bit better with their payment to artists.

But your point still stands. They are competing with piracy, and doing a good
job too.

~~~
SyneRyder
TorrentFreak says that 1 Million plays of Lady Gaga on Spotify earned her a
mere $167: [http://torrentfreak.com/lady-gaga-earns-slightly-more-
from-s...](http://torrentfreak.com/lady-gaga-earns-slightly-more-from-spotify-
than-piracy-091121/)

And InformationIsBeautiful has an infographic showing how many plays a solo
artist would need on each digital service to earn the US minimum wage:
[http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-
music...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-
artists-earn-online/)

These sites might be solving the service problem, but they're not earning much
money for the artists.

~~~
parbo
Why do people keep repeating information that is several years old? In Sweden,
Spotify is the second largest source of revenue for the labels. Of course, I
can't promise that the labels actually pay their artists. Read here:
<http://www.thelocal.se/38684/20120124/>

~~~
dasil003
Because Spotify and other all-you-can-eat music subscription services are no
more likely to earn you a decent living as an artist than the shenanigans the
labels have been pulling with advances on exorbitantly priced production and
distribution services for decades.

Spotify may well be providing significant revenue to the labels, but as Derek
Webb pointed out, it's a raw deal that devalues music in general with little
upside to anyone in the industry
([http://derekwebb.tumblr.com/post/13503899950/giving-it-
away-...](http://derekwebb.tumblr.com/post/13503899950/giving-it-away-how-
free-music-makes-more-than-sense)).

Now sure, maybe labels have been overpricing music with $20 CDs and they're
ripe for disruption. But at the same time, why should artists be keen on
trading in their overpaid RIAA-type management for a handful of small tech
startups with no credible upside (how viral would you have to go to earn a
million dollars?). The fact that Spotify is consumer-friendly means very
little to a starving artist. If I were a musician I certainly wouldn't be
buying into that system. Instead I'd be tolerating piracy and doing what I
could to differentiate myself in the high-value channels (ie. people buying
music).

~~~
parbo
If music is devalued, it's because a) there is vastly more of it than there
has ever been and b) other media compete for the same money.

If I were a musician in it for the money, I'd put my music out on every
available channel (even free ones), then make money on tours and exclusive
merchandise.

Way back before piracy and good streaming services, the average person could
not easily discover new music. Now they get exposed to all sorts of stuff
through these channels, and there is very little barrier to listen to
something. This then turns into people buying concert tickets etc.

~~~
dasil003
Not sure if you read Derek Webb's article, but he makes the case that piracy
is better for musician's than Spotify, because with Spotify people have paid
for it so the artist never stands a chance of making significant money from a
fan, whereas with piracy the will have the internal understanding that they
haven't really given anything to the artist, and eventually they may decide to
buy an album.

As easy as it is to hate the big bad RIAA, it's a red herring. Musicians are
under no obligation to support any particular business model. And contrary to
what you say, if every musician puts their music on Spotify, then Spotify
becomes the obvious consumer choice, and that sets a maximum value that music
is worth, and that value is orders of magnitude less than it can be worth
under the iTunes model. Musicians don't have to put their music into Spotify
though, and as long as significant numbers of them don't then the higher value
market for music can still exist. Piracy is definitely inevitable, and I
believe it's a waste of time to try to fight it at the individual scale, but
there is no reason artists have to bend over and accept a fraction-of-a-penny
pay-per-stream model as inevitable.

~~~
parbo
You're ignoring the long tail of streaming. Streaming revenue will continue
bubbling in, while sales are shortlived. In many cases streaming revenue will
surpass sales within a year or two.

~~~
dasil003
No. Please read the article.

~~~
parbo
I have read the article, and I'm disagreeing with it.

EDIT: I'm not disagreeing with the giving it away for free premise, but the
"streaming won't make me any money" part.

------
shalmanese
You know what piracy is killing? Community. If you try and gauge the total
number of actual viewers for the show, the number is pretty respectable, if
you look at the number who watch it from a monetizable source, the numbers
make it look barely viable.

The problem is, Community appeals to a demographic that is the most likely to
pirate the show. The Community cast have stories of doing college campus tours
where, polling the audience, up to 90% of the people in the room are watching
it not from broadcast tv.

Despite regularly being ranked as one of the best comedies currently airing,
Community is likely going off the air after at most one more season and the
reason why is because NBC simply can't make a profit on it.

I don't care what people pirate or what their reasons are but I think they
should be honest and acknowledge the actual effect that piracy has on art
rather than make up spurious hypotheticals to salve their conscience.

~~~
Harkins
Indeed, it may soon be impossible to make money selling buggy whips, and we
should not ignore that.

~~~
wormwood28
No one broke any laws making horseless carriages, we should not ignore that.

~~~
Natsu
True, but somewhat misleading, because lawmakers found other ways to
effectively ban cars:

"backlash against these large speedy vehicles resulted in the passage of the
Locomotive Act (1865), which required self-propelled vehicles on public roads
in the United Kingdom to be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and
blowing a horn"

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_automobile>

------
effigies
Nothing terribly new, but it's good to see it on Forbes. Maybe finally these
arguments, which have seemed patently obvious to those of us on the consuming
end, will penetrate the business and legislative classes.

~~~
henrikschroder
Yeah, it's very interesting to see that the mainstream media has started
picking up the opposite view and started asking questions instead of just
blindly repeating the propaganda from the copyright industry. It's definitely
a welcome change.

------
SoftwareMaven
I've heard this argument for a decade now. It still hasn't sunk into the music
industry (though it is deepest there) and the efforts to create policy to prop
up Hollywood have only gotten more absurd.

Believing the entrenched players are going to innovate themselves out of this
situation is just silly. It will take new entrants truly disrupting the space
_or_ we will eventually have to become comfortable with SOPA-like legislation
(I am leaving out true revolution. I heave no idea what it would take to get
my fellow US citizens off the couch, but I don't think this is it.).

~~~
rickmb
You're missing the option of copyright reform that will no longer protect the
business model of the entrenched players.

It may not happen in the US, were most of the industry resides and politicians
are bought and paid for _before_ they enter office, but other countries that
do not have such a powerful copyright industry are getting tired of being
bullied around by the US.

------
exim
It is not piracy, it is sharing. We were learning from childhood that sharing
is a good thing.

I'd never refuse to anyone asking to share a copy of some mp3/dvd/software or
any other type of copyable thing, even if I paid for it.

~~~
res0nat0r
So then would you be happy working X number of hours of your 40 hour work week
for 'anyone' without pay?

You are after all 'sharing' your skills with someone else.

~~~
exim
There are three kinds of people:

1\. Those who pay for copyable things

2\. Those who don't

3\. Those who pay if they can't find shared one.

The percentage of 3rd is rather misere.

One example: In my country, Windows is std de facto OS, because no one pays
for it. If it weren't available, no one would use it. i.e. it is not a loss
for MS. It is actually advantage, because MS can enforce govermental or
commercial structures to pay for it.

~~~
DanBC
You forgot 4. Those who want to pay, but will pirate if there's no option to
pay.

------
iamben
This is one of the best (or at least most sensible) articles I've read on this
in a while.

It's all about cost and convenience. The only way you'll ever prevent movie
piracy is to offer a legal alternative that is as easy and convenient, and
priced in a way that makes the legal way the easy choice.

Charge a dollar or two for a regular download, double it for HD and new
releases. I doubt most people would even bother to get a copy from a friend
because it would be so cheap just to get it themselves.

Some people are never going to pay, some people are always going to pay.
You're trying to catch the people who currently aren't paying because there
isn't a sensibly priced legal alternative that's as easy as just firing up
utorrent and the pirate bay.

Surely small amounts from lots of people is better than a slightly larger
amount from a few people?

~~~
equalarrow
Absolutely agree. In 2003 I vowed never to own any kind of physical media
again. I put all my cd's out on the sidewalk with a 'FREE' sign and the box
was gone within the hour. I dj'd for a stint and the same thing happened in
that industry. Although, there are still some vinyl purists, but I saw that go
vinyl, cd, and then mp3/wav. It's inevitable.

As a 'downloader' I'm still buying a few limited blurays. This is strictly for
the picture quality, but I'm almost done with that. The fact that my bluray
player is so goddamned slow (some discs take a ridiculous amount of time to
start up) and I have to sit through 20 ads or movie announcements, just pushes
me more to 1080p downloads. Although, these are compressed downloads and not
'real' 1080p raw files. But it's just that whole thing that keeps sticking in
my mind which is: I just want to easily watch the movie.

I'll definitely see all this change in my lifetime and I'll some day explain
to my kid how ridiculous it used to be and how he's got it so good now.

------
vbo
Yes, fighting piracy is the wrong way to go about increasing sales, or at the
very least a half assed solution. What's needed is a proper alternative to the
convenience offered by piracy (in terms of effort, not price, as argued in the
article) and once you've got that, ramping up sales becomes a matter of
marketing and piracy becomes a hindrance of variable strength, depending on
how good a job you do.

But I wouldn't argue in favour of "owning" digital content. That's tricky.
What kind of warranties can be offered? What if the service goes out of
business? I'm a big fan of subscription models, but I understand their
complexities (although I also understand averages, so I'm tempted to just say
work the numbers until they are right) and so I'm also in favour of renting
content. That said, once "The Service" is out there, owning may come about
naturally, competing with rentals and subscriptions.

The whole battle against piracy is a joke. To think we're (we?) willing to
dial back on hard fought liberties because it refuses to move forward is truly
sad and while piracy may never be killed, there may be innocent victims that
are put down due to the bureaucracy, malice and incompetence of archaic
industries, lawmakers and laws whose consequences are not considered
thoroughly.

It has gotten to a point where progressive developments seem inevitable, and
yet nothing happens except SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and whatever else may be oven for
tomorrow. There is an up side to this madness (opportunity) and HN is probably
the place that will uncover it, but that can't be unlocked unless these
industries wake the fuck up.

Sincerely, Someone who may not be going to see The Descendants tonight.

------
nl
Again: Compulsory licensing for streaming music has gone a long way towards
fixing this for music.

The tech industry and consumer advocates should promote the same for video as
a reasonable policy solution.

(Edit: BTW, if you are a journalist please consider doing a story on this.
Judging by upvotes from previous times I have suggested this it is quite a
popular idea)

~~~
rickmb
The licensing for streaming music online has resulted in geo-tarded extortion,
leaving all but a few of innovative initiatives struggling to survive and at
the mercy of the whims of the license holders.

There should have been as many Spotify's and Pandora's as there are radio
stations by now. Last FM's awesome social music platform should have been a
triumphant global success, instead of being slowly strangled by license
holders.

Licensing is not a reasonable solution. It's regulated extortion that kills
innovation stone dead.

~~~
nl
I don't disagree about the issues surrounding licensing.

But it is worth noting that there _are_ as many web based music broadcasters
as radio stations. Almost all radio stations do shoutcast-based streaming
themselves, and additionlly there are internet-only stations. Innovative: no.
Available: yes.

------
drcube
>Short of passing a law that allows the actual blacklisting of websites like
China and Iran, there is no legislative solution.

There's more to the internet than the web. This would break the web, but
wouldn't put a dent in piracy.

------
paramaggarwal
This article is so beautiful.

I spoke to my dad regarding this hub-hub on piracy vs. freedom. His thinking
is very similar to the publishing industry that pirating something is simply
illegal, and that's that.

I lost out in the discussion, because I wasn't able to provide good points on
the aspect of freedom, and that actually it is not piracy, but just sharing,
and it actually benefits the industry, not ruin it.

This article just made my job easier. It mentions all the important points.

------
jimbobimbo
I find the situation with Netflix very frustrating: I'm on 3 DVD + streaming
plan since forever, have not a single movie pirated since then, yet studios
are constantly coming up with new hoops for new releases availability
(especially with TV series)... I also think I could be paying more, just
please stop making my life harder for no good reason.

------
xfhai
When we go and see a movie and dont like it, we should get the money back.

~~~
batista
Yeah, like when we go to a restaurant and dont like the food. Oh, wait...

~~~
ccozan
Except that, you can't put the food back on cook's table, while nothing
happens with the movie as such. They still have it.

~~~
batista
Yeah, but

a) you already saw the movie -- what's to say you aren't a cheapskate, BSting
them to avoid paying?

b) you already occupied a space on the cinema that somebody else could have
used

c) they already paid for the reel to the movie distributor

~~~
batista
oh, and the most important:

d) it's a work of art, and subjective. Who said you only get to pay for the
movies you like? If you don't like Citizen Kane you should get your money
back?

------
jessa
I agree. With over billions of people doing this stuff, no one can ever
control piracy.

