
How to stop illegal downloads - noahtkoch
http://danariely.com/2012/11/03/how-to-stop-illegal-downloads/
======
mistercow
>Then I asked him to imagine if the product in question represented several
months or even years of his life. All that time he was creating, writing,
editing, and marketing this thing in order to fund his next project. And then
everyone downloaded it, illegally, for free.

So he responded to an actual argument with an appeal to emotions? And he seems
to be proud of this?

Sorry, no. If you have a problem with an argument, you point out the flaw in
the argument. You don't try to make the person giving the argument feel bad
for the conclusion.

> It turns out that we view ourselves categorically as either good or bad, and
> moving from being 3% legal to being 4% legal is not a very compelling
> motivation.

This is very silly reasoning. People who download illegally don't view
themselves as "bad", and most people I know who download illegally (aka "most
people I know") also buy stuff in the same category as what they download.

~~~
batgaijin
Yes, I would love to hear this man explain how prices should be structured for
a country like India or China.

Oh, you make less than 20$ a day? Well, I guess that means there is no legal
way for you to become culturally enlightened.

I mean the claims that pirating are bad are easy for me to buy for pure
entertainment, but I think it really falls apart when it comes to music and
especially books. The idea of being able to distribute ereaders with 100g
sticks filled with textbooks in any wanted language - it astounds me. It's so
cheap. So easy. So many children would be able to get such a head start on
life, with so many wonderful words to guide them on their path to becoming an
adult.

But it will never, ever happen. Not until people start thinking less about
exchanging money with other rich people.

------
commanda
By preemptively dismissing any and all "rationalizations" as examples of
flawed logic, this wise author has effectively created a black hole into which
he can throw any counter-argument of his thesis, dismissing it all as "proving
my point". Yikes - do we want to pay attention to the kind of rhetoretician
who constructs such a system wherein no possible counter-argument is
allowable?

~~~
Xcelerate
I think you're missing his point. The ability to rationalize is what allows
people to do bad things. Do you think someone who wants to steal something is
going to say "Yeah, this is bad, but I'm going to do it anyway"? Not very
often. It's probably more like: "I've had really bad luck in my life lately; I
need this to help my family/etc...; One item won't make a difference to the
shopkeeper".

So, no, he's not automatically dismissing any counterargument. He's saying
that the ability to rationalize anything is a strong reason for immoral
behavior.

~~~
S4M
For me he automatically dismissed the argument of the student giving his
reasons to download (he wouldn't buy the music anyway, and the disc production
are exploiting the artists).

If I killed somebody and tried to rationalize it (he would have died at some
point anyway, maybe he was a bad person, etc.), you could retort that no
matter what, I killed someone and it's just bad because you are causing lots
of harm (the victim, his family and friends, etc.), but you couldn't tell
someone who downloaded illegally some music that it's just a bad thing to do.

That's why I agree with the GP that his mention of the rationalization process
is here to automatically dismiss counter argument. It is an interesting point,
and I am sure people used this process to have a clear conscience having done
really bad things, but it is not by itself a counter-argument to illegal
download, or anything else.

------
readymade
I like Ariely but he's off the mark here, and ironically I think his
"conversion" is just as much a rationalization as any he represented in this
post.

It sucks to work hard on something that you're not renumerated for to the
degree you'd like. Suddenly maybe you're a big enough name that this isn't
simply due to obscurity, and you resent the fact that people got something out
of your effort without paying you for it. But the only thing obligating them
to do so in an absolute sense is copyright, and the moral compass of great
swaths of the general public seems to have evolved quite decisively beyond it,
and as problematic as that is for the current model of creative business I
doubt it will change any time soon. I'm no economist but I suspect it has to
do with an innate understanding of the value of the bits in and of themselves,
which due to the low cost of reproduction, is practically zero. This causes
cognitive dissonance in some, who believe it is their moral duty to support
the originators of those bits by purchasing them through on online store, but
apart from the few who actually take an overtly principled stance on the
matter, I suspect most who prefer this mode of distribution actually do so
because what they are really buying is the convenience and quality of the
transaction.

So yeah, artists deserve a fair shake in all this. But perhaps it's more
sensible to recognize the market is shifting and that the artists and
publishers of the future are going to need to take new approaches toward
monetization.

~~~
aes256
> But the only thing obligating them to do so in an absolute sense is
> copyright, and the moral compass of great swaths of the general public seems
> to have evolved quite decisively beyond it, and as problematic as that is
> for the current model of creative business I doubt it will change any time
> soon.

I wouldn't be so sure respect for intellectual property was ever all that
widespread.

We've simply transitioned from a state in which it was difficult to
'disrespect' intellectual property, to one in which it couldn't be easier.

I'm sure if, in the past, people could have costlessly and near-instantly
duplicated and shared vinyl records, cassettes, etc. people would have done it
in similarly large numbers as they do today.

~~~
betterunix
That is because prior to the widespread availability of the Internet and of
PCs, only a tiny minority of people were ever expected to think about
copyrights. Nobody was being sued for copying pages from a book using their
pen.

Supposedly, we expect people who have no legal background or training at all
to understand a legal issue that is full of nuances and subtleties. Except
that in reality, nobody expects people to be thinking about that, even the
RIAA and MPAA, which is why restriction systems are being deployed all over
the place. Everyone knows that the average American citizen never cared about
copyrights and was only buying from "legitimate" sources because there was no
alternative.

------
bo1024
I think this issue deserves more thought and introspection than Ariely seems
to have given it so far.

I think grecy's comparison to Catholicism is very striking. One common
criticism of Christian religions is centered on the idea of "original sin" --
the idea that people are inherently evil and need to be saved. A similar
criticism could (and maybe should) be applied to any law that is broken by a
large number of citizens. When this happens, I would take it as a sign that
there is something wrong with the law, not with people.

But anyway, the key thing is that Ariely seems to have a really exciting
research question here, which is how and why do people rationalize illegal
downloading, and he seems to be tossing it away in favor of dictating morality
at them through a megaphone.

------
shell0x
I download ebooks as well for several reasons without paying for them. I
mostly get a epub version of a book and start reading it. This way I can see
if I like the content and the style it's written in. I will get the book as a
hardcover version and continue reading on paper at home and on my kindle on
the go if I like the content after the first three chapter. So I have the
advantages of both media. However, I wouldn't purchase the book a second time
as ebook, because it's doesn't make any sense to pay for the same content
again. And I wouldn't buy a ebook in the Kindle store, because I don't support
this DRM crap at all. It's the same with movies. You'll have more
disadvantages if you are honest and buy the movies then just downloading it
from the pirate bay _without_ copy protection, ads & propaganda("bootlegger
are criminals and have to go to jail for five years. Buy your movies").

------
mhuffman
I think it is very hard for people to understand the value of something that
you can duplicate 1 million times with no additional resources or effort. Most
honest people know that if you spent time building a birdhouse and they just
took it from you, that they are stealing. You don't have it anymore and you
spent time and money to make it. If there was a magic "replicator" machine, I
think even our normal idea of what theft is, would change. If I could copy
your birdhouse, and you could still keep your birdhouse, how is that even
stealing? It think the only thing that would ever work is to allow people to
give a "token" payment, perhaps a few cents, for the privilege of duplicated
electronic content. iTunes offers something approaching that idea and it is
doing great.

~~~
Xcelerate
If I could copy someone's birdhouse, and they could still keep it, why should
they even bother putting time into making the birdhouse in the first place if
the whole point was to make money off of it? In that case, there's no
incentive to create anything at all.

And secondly, I believe people need to respect other people's rules for their
own content. It's rude to disregard someone's wishes with regard to what
they've created. If someone says "Yeah, go ahead and feel free to copy my
book" then that's fine. But if someone says "I'd really prefer it if people
did not copy and distribute my work", and you do so anyway, well... that's
just not very nice because you're disrespecting that person's wishes.

~~~
betterunix
The only thing that matters when it comes to copyrights is what benefits
society. It is not a matter of being rude or not being rude, it is not a
matter of morality, it is not a matter of the creator's wishes, it is a matter
of ensuring that the general public has access to "science and useful arts."
Copyrights were created to promote businesses that make copies of creative
works, because in the 18th century that was the best way to spread knowledge
and art.

Of course, today we have a much better system for spreading knowledge: the
Internet. We should be promoting that, and developing new systems for paying
for creative work that are based on using the Internet (and especially peer to
peer networks) to spread that work.

~~~
Xcelerate
You're saying an author's own wishes do not matter in the manner his work is
treated?

~~~
mhuffman
That is correct. The intent of copyright is not to support the wishes of the
author, but to stimulate the progress of arts and sciences.
[http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/events/courses/1996/cmwh/Copyright/...](http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/events/courses/1996/cmwh/Copyright/origin.html)

~~~
gathly
I like this. Living in America, I get bombarded with the Libertarian idea that
one should focus on the self so much that I forget that there was a time when
focusing on the progress of society was not heresy.

------
Soarez
My opinion is the same as Rick Falkvinge's: "The role of any entrepreneur is
to make money given the contemporary constraints of society and technology.
They do not get to dismantle civil liberties, even if - and perhaps especially
if - they are unable to make money in the face of sustained civil liberties."

------
cientifico
What is funny is that if you look for the name of the book and the format you
want the book to be, there is no single download link where you can buy.

So if this guy wants to sell, why don't give that options to the users. When
the SEO will come to the books world?

------
anonymouz
To arrive at this dubious conclusion, the author, intentionally or not, mixes
up a number of concepts that really have to be kept separate, should one want
to arrive at any sane conclusion:

1) Not every download of his book is automatically illegal. Many countries
have laws in which uploading constitutes copyright infringement, which can
fall under criminal code if done commercially or on large scale, but where
downloading is entirely legal. Calling people "illegal downloaders" won't help
his case.

2) Identifying copyright infringement with theft does not help his case
either. Such rhetoric is often used to make an action seem worse than it would
otherwise be, but is dishonest and usually does not lead to a fruitful
discussion.

3) From "illegal download" he makes the jump to "dishonesty". This confuses
the matter of legality with morality. Ideally the two would align perfectly,
but in practice this is often not so. Copyright law seems to be a field where
very many people have doubts on whether the current system is a good one.

Once he has connected downloaders to "dishonesty", the whole thing essentially
degrades into a bad rant. Making broad accusations of immorality, implying
that people should think of themselves as polluted, and then claiming a moral
high ground for himself, offering others a "fresh start" and "amnesty" won't
accomplish any of the outcomes he seeks.

------
schackbrian
"Between September 2003 and April 2004, the RIAA, through its Clean Slate
Program, offered individual file sharers amnesty for past infringements, 'on
the condition that they refrain from future infringement,' and delete the
infringing material."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_fil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_group_efforts_against_file_sharing#Amnesty_programs)

------
grecy
This is all too closely tied to "confession" in the Catholic sense.

Ugh.

~~~
vyrotek
Or perhaps we can be "Born again users".

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
I do use a Borne Again Shell :P

ObOnTopic: I thought the way copyright was written was that downloading is not
illegal, but uploading (transmitting) was that actual illegal action. The only
reason torrenters get in trouble is because they upload and download at the
same time.

That could be a legal technicality in which someone writes a torrent client to
download only, as to show lack of culpability in the act of uploading. Of
course, this does indeed kill the network.

~~~
mileswu
I believe it depends on the country. I think in Switzerland (and perhaps
Canada for music?) downloading copyrighted material was legal, but uploading
was illegal. But I am pretty sure that is not the case for the US, and
downloading is still copyright infringement.

Perhaps food for thought here [http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2009/09/p2p-downloading-i...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2009/09/p2p-downloading-is-it-legal/)

------
kintamanimatt
Amnesty isn't going to work because people don't feel like they're going to be
caught, let alone punished. They feel safe downloading content and will even
if the threat of enforcement is raised; humans have a natural tendency to feel
safe doing "dangerous" things if they do them often and are familiar, i.e.
driving, smoking, habitually lying or cheating.

People pirate in part for convenience and in part so they can sample the goods
without risk. I doubt most people pirate to save money, but in all cases,
either having a DRM-free product with a strong money-back guarantee, or
offering all content available as an unlimited use subscription based product
(like Safari) would make it more appealing to whip out that credit card,
rather than pirate.

Sometimes people are just too poor to buy the content, in which case I think
there should be a "food stamps" program for books. Yes, I know libraries exist
but they're either poorly stocked or inconvenient in the eyes of younger
people, making piracy uber attractive.

------
spindritf
> However, the behaviors we most often observe and notice are ones that are
> outside of the legitimate domain (e.g., doping in sports, infidelity by
> politicians, exaggerated resumes by CEOs) and in these cases the social
> proof can change things for the worse.

The idea of scandal also has its place in the catholic doctrine, see the
Catechism 2284-2287[1]:

> 2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. the
> person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue
> and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is
> a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a
> grave offense. [...]

[1] <http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P80.HTM>

------
orionblastar
Oddly enough the first ebook I wrote for Kindle was pirated. It was not the
best book, but sold 800+ copies in the first few months. I am trying to
improve as a writer so I can write better. The ebook only got one star in a
review, and I did not use DRM to protect it, so I guess someone bought it for
99 cents and then converted it to other formats and pirated it.

In a way it made my ebook more popular when it was given away for free. Kindle
only allows me 5 days of a free Kindle Select promotion every 90 days, but
because the book was illegally downloaded it someone became more popular even
if it was hard to read and poorly formatted.

Eventually the Bit Torrent site took it down, and Amazon found it and I guess
issued a cease and desist order or something.

~~~
rmc
_I did not use DRM to protect it, so I guess someone bought it for 99 cents
and then converted it to other formats and pirated it._

Even if you use DRM, the DRM can often be stripped off and then pirated. This
is possible on the Amazon Kindle Store at least.

------
eikenberry
Easy. Make it legal.

~~~
camus
Easier , make a product that cannot be downloaded , instead of selling ebooks
, make an paid online eduction service where the added value is that you can
ask question directly to the teacher giving the class, have your lessons
updated ,etc... I'm a musician , i used to try to sell music online, now i
sell my production talents to other musicians. That cannot be downloaded. So
instead of trying to sell "goods" , sell services.

