

The case for piracy - cubicle67
http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2011/10/20/3344351.htm

======
jonnathanson
I'll play the role of devil's advocate / British Royal Navy here.

This article demonstrates a shaky grasp of the entertainment industry's
structure, and that shaky grasp leads the author to make unwarranted
assumptions and misguided conclusions about the intent of almost wholly
unrelated parties.

Contrary to most gut-level consumer assessments of the industry, the industry
itself is not some monolithic and homogenous unit. Within the industry are
countless different companies and parties, as different from one another as,
say, Apple is from Google. (Though Apple's products and Google's products
often intermingle, it would be silly to conflate the two companies altogether
into one, single-minded unit; this is essentially what the author of this
piece does with companies in the entertainment business).

To wit:

 _"Gladiator, Channel 10....What better time for a giant cartoon helicopter to
fly around the screen announcing, "Don't forget, Merrick and Rosso! The
B-Team! Every Wednesday night at 7.30!"

I remember every syllable of that ad. Positioning ads like this is, Gruen has
told us, is most effective as we're at our most vulnerable. But at the same
time this was like the network raising its middle finger at the us..._

First of all, more likely than not, this wasn't the "network." This was your
local affiliate station (Channel 10). In this case, the station's general
manager was the one "raising his middle finger" at you. He purchased the
broadcast rights to the movie. He is one person. He is not employed by the
network whose programs he carries on the national portions of his airtime.
(And this movie airing was likely a local portion).

More to the point: neither he, nor the network with which his station is
affiliated, had anything to do with the making of the movie. To be angry at
this promo placement is fine; to draw conclusions that the company who made
the movie bears any responsibility for this placement is silly. If you don't
want to watch "Gladiator" with local promos thrown in, don't watch it on local
TV. Watch the DVD, the Blu-ray, Netflix, iTunes, cable on-demand, or any of
the other legitimate ways to view "Gladiator" that are at your disposal. It's
absurd to make the claim that piracy is your only hassle-free way of viewing
the film, or that it's the only reasonable resort left to someone so offended
by a local promo in a local broadcast.

At the end of the day, much of this piece is the same, warmed-over and
intellectually lazy argument in favor of piracy that we've all heard a million
times before. It's an argument that attempts to justify theft by pointing to
the supposedly heavy burdens born by legal purchase, and by villifying the
producers and distributors of said product. And that argument doesn't hold up.
The consumer burdens (some forms of DRM notwithstanding) really aren't that
onerous, and the companies behind the content -- while slow to grok the
technology disrupting them, and thus highly reactionary -- aren't some evil
cabal hell-bent on fucking you over. Let's call this what it really is: piracy
is convenient, cheap, and mostly consequence-free. That's why everyone likes
it. Let's not add a veneer of moral justification to it.

People can find post-facto justifications for pretty much anything they like
doing. If people found a way to steal gasoline cheaply and easily, they'd come
around to the idea that the oil companies were getting what they deserved. If
stealing produce off the shelves of Whole Foods were no big thing, we'd point
to our least favorite Whole Foods business practices as justification for our
actions. And so on and so forth.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Hollywood does a lot of things wrong. No
question about it. But piracy _predated_ many of everyone's critiques of the
business, and the practices everyone hates so much. Furthermore, piracy has
only made the situation _worse_ , by making the entertainment companies more
paranoid, more reactionary, and more defensive.

If we really want to change the Hollywood distribution model -- which
certainly _does_ need rethinking -- then let's act constructively about it.
Let's form startups in that space. Let's support, by voting with our wallets,
disruptive and interesting players in that space. Let's not rebel against the
marketplace, but rather, let's demonstrate the voice of the consumer _in_ the
marketplace by shifting power and resources to the companies making strides in
favor of the consumer.

~~~
MostAwesomeDude
Copyright infringement isn't theft.

Pirates _do_ vote with their wallets -- they keep their wallets closed and
don't support _any_ players in the market. You seem to be of the opinion that
supporting the least-evil companies will slowly shift the standard MO in the
market towards less evil activities, but there's two problems: (1) This hasn't
actually helped unseat the incumbent corporations, and (2) there's nobody who
is sufficiently not-evil to the point where they are worth supporting.

This isn't a consumer-and-business problem. This is not something that can be
fixed by improving consumer awareness. The problem isn't that consumers aren't
making smart choices, the problem is that this market exists at all. Copyright
was never meant to be abused this way, and our continued compliance towards
the market and the corporations participating in it are not helping.

I'd like to make an analogy. Consider the bottled water market. This is a
market which takes a free good (water) which is generally considered too cheap
to meter, and sets a relatively outrageous price on it. The markup is
justified through the packaging, quality assurance process, and a general
insistence on part of the producer that the bottled water is somehow superior
to non-bottled water.

What's the answer to bottled water? Supporting bottled water startups? Seeking
out and raising awareness of disruptive bottled water producers? I'd say that
the answer is simply to not buy bottled water.

At this point, you're gonna say that bottled water isn't a good analogy
because piracy would equate to stealing pallets of bottled water. You're
right; the analogy doesn't carry that far. Feel free to come up with a more
accurate analogy.

(I'm gonna get US-specific at this point.)

Do you recognize this? "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by
securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and Discoveries." This is the clause of the
Constitution which authorizes Congress to establish copyright. This is the
_only_ authority under which copyright may operate: It must be limited, it
must be aimed at content _creators_ , not merely redistributors or
advertisers; it must promote common culture. The point of copyright, as we
historically know, is to ensure that artists can make money without
patronization, in order to permit an artist who _continually makes work_ to be
remunerated for that work. The idea of a limit on copyright was to ensure that
the common culture, the public domain, which was considered more important
than the right of an artist to be compensated, would not be ignored; anything
which is published will eventually belong to everybody and not any single
person or group.

Know how long copyright was originally? 14 years plus an optional 14-year
renewal, if the author was still alive. That was in 1790, for the
"encouragement of learning." It was intended for copyright to eventually
_shrink_ as distribution improved; after all, why would we need a long
copyright when authors are nearly instantly remunerated in this age of speedy
international distribution? And now copyright lasts longer than most people.

You and I, and everybody else, have minds filled with cultural information. It
really should belong to all of us, shouldn't it? Isn't it a damn shame that
Mickey Mouse, after three-quarters of a century, being a character our
_grandparents_ enjoyed, isn't somebody we can have? That the cultural
contributions of John Coltrane aren't ours to enjoy? I'm not gonna keep
listing things from the twentieth century which we all know but aren't
available to us; there's just too much stuff and too little space in this tiny
textarea.

So, in this space, who do you see as a disruptive or interesting player, and
why? Who will _you_ support with your wallet? Because I'm done. I'm tired of
it.

~~~
jonnathanson
_"Pirates do vote with their wallets -- they keep their wallets closed and
don't support any players in the market."_

But yet, they still take the content. It's a half-hearted and disingenuous
form of boycott. If the goal were really to send Hollywood a message, and to
take an absolute moral high ground in doing so, then wouldn't a more effective
message be sent in not consuming the product whatsoever? Not buying it _and_
not pirating it?

For what it's worth, I don't disagree _whatsoever_ with your anger toward the
industry, or with your critiques of their business practices. The only
functional difference in our positions is that I don't try to pretend that
downloading a product I haven't paid for is somehow justified by a post-facto
moral facade I bolt onto my actions.

Now, all of that aside, let's get to the heart of the matter here: people
enjoy quality content. Hollywood produces a lot of quality content (despite
Michael Bay's best attempts to undermine that fact). What people enjoy about
Hollywood is the _production_ side of the business. What they don't enjoy is
the _distribution_ side. Historically, those two have been intertwined because
production -- in and of itself -- is not profitable. It is the cost center of
the industry. Spending $200MM to produce a tentpole movie, or even $2MM to
produce a little indie movie, is an investment that can only generate a return
when packaged, distributed, and monetized somehow.

Therein lies the challenge. We all want Hollywood to make product, but we
don't want Hollywood to sell us that product. Eventually, Hollywood might pull
out of the distribution side of the business altogether, and find a way to
monetize its production by charging its distributors (Apple, Netflix, Amazon,
etc.) higher fees of some stripe. But eventually, those fees will get passed
onto the consumer, one way or the other.

~~~
Goronmon
_But yet, they still take the content. It's a half-hearted and disingenuous
form of boycott. If the goal were really to send Hollywood a message, and to
take an absolute moral high ground in doing so, then wouldn't a more effective
message be sent in not consuming the product whatsoever? Not buying it and not
pirating it?_

Not participating in a societies culture is a very high price to pay for not
wanting to support how companies distribute said culture.

If libraries were to disappear, would you still claim people should stop
reading if they won't want to or can't afford to support the publication of
certain books?

------
chopsueyar
_On a personal note, I suspect that once the world's internet infrastructure
comes up to speed, we'll all be using on-demand subscription models and the
notion of buying content to keep will feel archaic. Even so, more needs to be
done to protect the public from ham-fisted copyright industries demanding
payment for everything._

By the time the infrastructure is in place, high-capacity media will be so
much more affordable that one can cram hundreds, if not thousands of
shows/movies/music and view them locally, without requiring a network
streaming connection.

It is all about distribution.

------
twainer
There is no case for piracy per se. There IS a case for faster, more efficient
distribution models that combine lower costs and wider reach into a more
modern operating structure. Such a business model would easily be able to
attract rights-holders anyway; copy-rights are not the problem, they are just
a symptom. By a lot of measures piracy is just a symptom as well.

Both sides will have to give a little in order to make an alternative business
structure possible. For rights-holders this means abiding by shorter copyright
terms, compulsory licensing for orphaned works, etc. For pirates this means
abiding by actually paying and participating in the system as well as agreeing
to the safeguards that reward lawful participation.

If pirates are never willing to accept reasonable safeguards that form the
legal structure for their side of the 'agreement', rights-holders can hardly
be expected to accept destruction of their own safeguards.

~~~
slowpoke
>There is no case for piracy per se.

You are right. However - at least for me - it was never about making a case
for piracy. It was making a case _against copyright_. Piracy is merely (as you
point out yourself) a symptom, a consequence. The true cause is the completely
absurd concept of copyright, the notion that you can own ideas, and the
abstruse line of argument that correlates existence of art and innovation to
the restriction of distribution and usage thereof.

~~~
twainer
The concept of copyright is not absurd at all. The notion that one has rights
to their own ideas is a marvelous development of liberal productive societies;
it is a hallmark. It has allowed value to accrue to things that were actually
valuable while also being intangible.

The mere existence of art and innovation is not enough to make up for the
destruction of rights to one's own work or ideas. Putting the progress of art
and innovation solely in the hands of hobbyists is like saying the start-up
world will work fine if no one gets funding anymore because people can always
code stuff themselves at home on the weekend.

I am not saying at all that the status quo form of those rights is the only
viable form. But to dismiss rights out-of-hand is throwing the baby out with
the bathwater and choosing a very weird solution [turning back the clock] to a
very modern problem.

~~~
hxa7241
Marvelous? It is an interesting idea, yes, but if even Landes & Posner express
clear doubt over whether it does any good overall, one ought not overdo it.

> It has allowed value to accrue to things that were actually valuable while
> also being intangible.

It allowed _price_ to be given to them, but since that _detracts_ from the
value we can immediately see it is not such a clearly good proposition -- it
is very questionable.

Copyright gets by to a large degree on a conservative mind-set. It is almost
impossible to see alternative ideas, but very easy to appreciate what actually
exists. Caution is not all wrong, but when the greatest information tech in
history has recently been invented, one would think the situation is more
about turning the clock forward not back.

~~~
twainer
"It allowed price to be given to them, but since that detracts from the value
we can immediately see it is not such a clearly good proposition -- it is very
questionable."

Something can only be priced because it has value already.

As for seeing alternative ideas: while hardly a conservative - I think it's a
great development to allow ideas to be monetized. If someone has an
alternative system to copyright that can do that I am truly all-ears . . .

What I find illogical is this idea that we should move forward to a world
where we run a knowledge-based economy but that that knowledge shouldn't have
any monetary value. Are we going to barter ideas between one another to make
ends meet? I'd love to hear how . . .

~~~
slowpoke
> Something can only be priced because it has value already.

You're missing the point. Ideas are invaluable. Assigning them a price
detracts that value.

> I think it's a great development to allow ideas to be monetized.

The idea that everything needs to be monetize-able to be worth investing
in/spending time on is, for lack of better words, a disease.

> What I find illogical is this idea that we should move forward to a world
> where we run a knowledge-based economy but that that knowledge shouldn't
> have any monetary value.

How is this illogical? Knowledge had no monetary value to being with, because
it's worth more than any amount of money.

Also, we're not going to run a "knowledge-based economy". We're going to move
to a knowledge-based _society_ that most likely will depend on a _service-
based_ economy in which everyone can profit off each other's innovations,
allowing for incremental development that will speed up progress by
magnitudes.

> Are we going to barter ideas between one another to make ends meet? I'd love
> to hear how . . .

But that's exactly what we're doing right now (licensing etc), and which you
rightly point out is illogical to the point of utter absurdness.

------
VonLipwig
For me there are 3 things that I used to download. Music, Movies and TV shows.

I was most prolific with music. I didn't share the music, I didn't burn the
music to disks. I just acquired it to listen at home. The reason was I simply
didn't have the money to buy every album of every artist I liked. Instead I
downloaded the music and paid to see them live.

This really all changed with Spotify. A flat monthly fee to listen to as much
music as I want. This was all I wanted all along. I don't care for owning
music. Now I buy the albums of a handful of artists for my iPod. Then use
Spotify around the house. This is the music industry adapting to the needs of
the listener. Its good stuff.

With movies. I love the cinema and watch most movies there. I hate the cost of
dvd's. If I buy a DVD I watch it maybe once a year... if that. I will watch
the extra's once. The cost of a new DVD is like £12, BluRay is higher... I
just don't see the value in it. There is rental but again, its bad value. It
costs like £4 for one night. Often the disk doesn't include the special
features. The ad's at the start of the disk cannot be skipped.. It requires a
lot of planning to ensure your night is actually free to watch the film.

If I was in the states I would get NetFlix but where I am there still isn't
much alternative to downloading a film for the single viewing or waiting 6
months till it eventually comes into the sale.

My main gripe is with TV shows. I enjoy US TV shows. I don't want the worlds
most expensive TV package to catch them all scattered across ten's of
channels. Even if I had all the channels. Watching it week by week with ad's.
Boring. Even when the US season end's. The DVD or paid download version
doesn't come out in my country for 6-12 months later because local TV is still
waiting to show it...

This model to me seems broken. It is too slow and separate's fans of the show
from the show itself. I download most shows I watch. I then buy the boxed set
when it comes out here so I can get the extra's and support the show.

In my opinion piracy in terms of downloading for individual consumption is -
in many cases - understandable. It is the failure of industries to understand
why people are doing it and not catering for them which is the larger problem.

------
junto
I've always tried to pursue legal avenues for media content. As an UK expat I
understand the woes described quite acutely.

I recently subscribed to the BBC iPlayer global. Bitterly disappointed. You
are restricted to watching the content on the iPad (no Airplay to APTV). Not
sure then why I own a fucking widescreen tv. Idiots.

Not to mention that you can't download the iPlayer Global from the UK Apple
store where the vast majority of UK expats have their iTunes account. You have
to use the local store. Great when it is in German and won't accept your UK
credit card.

Really, how hard are you trying to stop me giving you money? Here's money,
take it. Um, you need to jump through 15 million effing hoops first and then
you can give us your money. Astonishing...

------
ericdykstra
My problem with current music distribution platforms is that they don't cater
to a lot of the music I listen to.

Spotify may have 15 million songs, but if half of the albums I want to listen
to aren't on there, what's the point in using it at all?

Pandora may be nice for digging deeper if you listen to mainstream indie rock,
but if they don't have 90% of the artists you want to make a station of in
their database, and the other 10% give you more terrible/mainstream music,
it's just a waste of time.

Last.fm radio is great, except when multiple artists use the same name, and
you get a track nothing like what you expect every few songs and have to
babysit it. iTunes and other mp3 album purchasing sites suffer from poor
quality of files, and no way to check if there is terrible transcoding.

CDs and records are the best way to get what you want, but the price is steep,
and if the album you want doesn't have a local distributor, a full length
album can cost $45+ to import.

And that's _just_ music.

------
powrtoch
> Around this time Sony also came up with other ways to stop people listening
> to the music they had bought. A system appeared which inserted noise and
> interference when people tried to compress music from CDs.

I never heard about this, but I'm very interested. Can't seem to find anything
about it on Google, can anyone link me?

~~~
ajtaylor
"Sony rootkit" should be more than sufficient to satisfy you.

~~~
marshray
No, he's asking about something else - an audio technology.

------
nico_h
Pfffffff, it's not piracy, no one is getting thrown into the sea, burned
alive, hanged from a mast, flogged, ransomed or separated from his limbs. :-(

