5 ms·

Try again. The argument is not that copyright is unnecessary. The argument is that "honoring copyright" and "taking legal action and attempting to secure gover

by Ryanmf 15y ago

Try again. The argument is not that copyright is unnecessary. The argument is that "honoring copyright" and "taking legal action and attempting to secure government oversight to prop up an obsolete, commodity-based business model" are nowhere close to being the same thing. To assert that Barlow is attempting to confuse is totally disingenuous. The two issues are conflated. They're conflated because the rights-holders have conflated them. He's not sitting on that stage debating a panel of artists and philosophers; the majority of them aren't even proper economists. They're just the guys who have the most to lose if things change, and they're attempting (I would argue illegally/unconstitutionally, but until we can get a handle on lobbyism, 1st and 4th amendment rights violations, and continuing trends towards oligarchy in this country... que será, será) to leverage as much influence as they can muster to legislate their poor business model into continued existence in a world which no longer supports it. Let's take the honorable Mr. Gianopulos' example: when someone asks you for a couple hundred million dollars to make a movie about some blue aliens, you'd like to be compensated. First of all, "some blue people on another planet"? Now, I'll be the first to say that I felt Avatar was mostly Pocahontas with better visual effects. But come on. Gianopulos was a poor Greek kid from New York City, he attended college and law school, then immediately went to work in Hollywood. This is his entire life. He's on a stage insisting that the sanctity of these (his?) arts must be protected by any means (currently legal or not) necessary. And he still can't get six words out of his mouth without being completely dismissive of the art he professes a desire to protect. This is one of the two biggest successes of the man's professional career. I wonder if he refers to Titanic as "some fucking thing about a sinking boat." (The attitude illustrated in the preceding paragraph is the foremost reason many of us consider these people to be pig-fuckers, incidentally. I'm going to step outside the bounds of rational discourse for a moment and risk some downvotes to make an audacious assertion: If you (not you, edanm, who I'm replying to, but you, the reader) believe that these multi-billion dollar media conglomerates actually concern themselves with art or the livelihoods of artists, or that they intend to protect anything but their own bottom lines, or that they are somehow entitled to the role of sole, perpetual rights holders and distributors of any media created by anyone, anywhere, ever (as their comments indicate that they believe they are), you need to please see your way right the hell out of this discussion—maybe do some light reading, I'd recommend starting with Lessig's Free Culture— because you clearly don't understand what the fuck is going on here. Yeah, there was a lot of hyperbole in there. I'll leave it up to you, dear reader, to sort out whether or not I'm full of shit.) Now, down to brass tacks. What Mr. Gianopulos is really concerned with is Avatar as a vehicle for his well-deserved compensation. So let's take a look, shall we? Avatar budget: ~$237,000,000 Avatar worldwide gross as of Jan 2011: $2,039,472,387+ According to News Corp's 2000 Annual Report [1], 20th Century Fox grossed roughly $1 Bn worldwide for all films released in FY 2000, and nearly half of that (~$494 M) was a result of them duping viewers worldwide into watching Star Wars: Episode 1 (including me, on opening day, the bastards). I was a freshman in high school by the end of FY 2000, which means Napster was in it's last throes, but Opennap networks were as numerous as they'd ever been and more configurable clients like WinMX were widely distributed, Newsgroups and IRC Warez/Scene channels had been hot for years, and the Kazaa's of the world were coming soon, with Torrents and an infinity of blogs posting an infinity of Rapidshare links on the horizon. I "knew" (on the internet) a guy at the time who had over a terabyte of music available for download, when a terabyte was an unfathomable amount of data. He had a cushy job where he could more or less take home as many hard drives as he wished, whenever he wished, and he filled them up largely with multi-hour trance and techno DJ sets, at quality levels way above the average back then. All of this is to say, in FY 2000, if you knew how to work the internet and were so inclined, you could get anything you wanted, for free. Maybe you had to wait a few days for it to download on your dial-up connection, and it may have occupied 20% of the remaining free space on your 20 Gb hard drive, but you could get it. All those people who paid repeatedly to see "The Phantom Menace" multiple times in theatres? They definitely knew how to download a copy of it well before it was released on DVD. And yet they still paid. Weird, right? Flash forward a decade, when broadband is prevalent, storage is cheap, and the tools and understanding required to download any given copyrighted work are not merely the domain of geeks and organized crime, but are in fact readily available to your dentist, my mom, an increasing percentage of the elderly, and everyone on earth under 25 years old. Also, probably dogs. Yet 20th Century Fox managed to nearly double FY 2000s yearly gross with a single film. But Mr. Gianopulos is concerned about compensation. Better call the lawyers. Actually, better just get international heads of state to issue mandates that henceforth Sony/BMG, Time Warner, CBS, NewsCorp, Viaporn...I apologize, Viacom, NBC/Universal/GE?/Comcast??/Whatthefuck and the weeping ghost of Walt Disney are the sole arbiters and proprietors of any creation which may be construed as "media," and furthermore will act as government contractors wherein they will be responsible to define and enforce the meanings of the words "art," "artist," "music," "culture," "innovation," and most importantly, "deserve." None of this even begins to address the astronomical budget of a film like Avatar in an age when a $200 cell phone can record higher quality video for a longer period of time than a $15,000 professional camera and $40,000 worth of film could 15 years ago, nor the fact that marketing ANYTHING to a worldwide potential customer base has gone from "complicated and expensive" to "marginally free, and the easiest shit ever." My passion, music, also suffers great tribulation resulting from the decisions of the aforementioned pig-fuckers, and as you'd imagine I have quite a lot to say on the topic, but I've already written a ton here, best to let some of you tell me why I'm doing it wrong before I carry on. [1] http://newscorp.com/report2000/filmed_ent.html http://newscorp.com/report2000/filmed_ent.html (edit: changed caps to ital, removed superfluous characters)

jongraehl 15y ago
"a $200 cell phone can record higher quality video for a longer period of time than a $15,000 professional camera and $40,000 worth of film could 15 years ago" Definitely untrue. Consider just the lens.
- Ryanmf 15y ago
  Noted. I'm willing to rescind that bit, unnecessary hyperbole intended to drive home the point that most of the scarcities which have driven up the real costs of media production over the years have recently evaporated, yet the "budgets" and the compensation which producers expect—and apparently, "deserve"—remain astronomical. You'll note that despite its phenomenal financial success, Avatar was unsuccessful in its bid for Best Picture, an accolade which one would assume is of greater importance than "moneymoneymoneymoneymoney" to artists (read: the people who actually make this stuff). The Hurt Locker—a film which cost ~$11M to produce—came away with that honor. Perhaps if Mr. Gianopulos is concerned with ensuring his fair compensation, he should stop allowing James Cameron to convince him it costs $300M to make a movie people will pay to see. As an aside, if you want to float me $55,000 I bet I can find a way to arrange a few dozen iPhone camera sensors into an array that would beat the pants off of any "professional" solution available c. 1995.
yuhong 15y ago
Yea, many of this I am well aware of already. In fact, I have a series on artificial scarcity and it's problems. The problem is how to get the media companies to finally change and fix the problem completely. Doing the debugging to find out exactly what is happening internally would be a good idea.
- yuhong 15y ago
  For example, has someone investigated the exact history of "Hollywood accounting"?
  - Ryanmf 15y ago
    I, for one, would love to know where those hundreds of millions to produce Avatar went, for instance. I wonder what slice of that pie was attributed to "Marketing Expense." Turns out it's free to upload a video (like, a trailer, let's say) to YouTube and link to it elsewhere. Go figure. But insofar as media conglomerates addressing this matter internally, why would they? It's not a problem for them. Their revenues have been on a steady climb since ever. They know god damn well how little overlap exists in the groups "definitely going to pay for it" and "would consider downloading it for free." But they would have you believe that every "illegal" download represents a lost conversion. Now there's blood in the water, because "Hollywood" is one of the few industries left in America which still makes any money, and as belts continue to tighten, highly compensated lobbyists (including the most highly compensated, Cary Sherman [1]) will be more and more successful in convincing conservative politicians that they need to vote to protect entrepreneurship and (not really) free market capitalism, and liberal politicians that they need to lend their support to secure the livelihoods of our poor struggling artists. The more sinister elements in all of our governing bodies will jump at any opportunity to introduce legislation which further erodes liberty but allows them to monitor/control that damn Internet thing. All the while, most artists still get fucked by the system, ClearChannel/LiveNation/GoldenVoice are still shitty, evil monopolies, and the executives of major media firms laugh uproariously all the way to the bank. I sincerely doubt that the change will come from within. Not that there aren't people who work for those organizations who care passionately about the arts, who understand technology and its implications in significant and meaningful ways, who generally have their hearts in the right places. There will be a place for them in the arts economy of the future, but somebody new will be signing their cheques (or bitcoins). The decision-makers at the top are the ones who give off the impression that they'd prefer to hide in their opulent executive chambers, doing their damndest to legislate their competitors out of existence, and ultimately bleed to death, gripping stacks of money, gold bullion spilling from their pockets, then actually compete on the free market, and perhaps die an honorable death. The Guardian conducted an interview with electronic music pioneer, brilliant composer, omni-talented artist and all-around genius Brian Eno last year, wherein he stated the following: "I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along." Two important points here: 1. This was going to happen no matter what. These firms rose to prominence during an odd period in the ongoing history of our world civilization when ideas, emotions, and artistic expressions could be recorded, duplicated, and feasibly distributed to consumers around the world. They happened to exist at an exact moment on the timeline when it was just cheap enough that it could be accomplished, but just expensive enough that a large firm was required to organize workers, consolidate (what was, at the time, very expensive) equipment, and coordinate distribution to drive marginal costs down. That moment in time is passing. Marginal costs to produce and distribute media are rapidly approaching zero. 2. The inevitability of these changes in market conditions is no reason to vilify media conglomerates. They did just spend about 60 years betting on all the wrong horses, but no one could know that the Internet (and all it entails) was coming. The reason to vilify these organizations lies in their reactions to these changes. I'm not going to go down the list, suffice it to say that much resentment towards labels/studios/production groups/etc. has built up, not just on behalf of artists and others with a dog in the fight, but in average consumers. That resentment just didn't exist a decade or two ago. The "rights-holders" fought the inevitable, and now not only are they going to lose, but they've so antagonized their customers—the only people who may have been able to prop them up long-term if only due to sympathy—that people who previously wouldn't have given a shit are now positively giddy at the idea of someone like Jim Gianopulos standing, defeated and alone, with nothing but a stupid look on his face and all his fucking whale blubber. I assert that in no way is the continued existence of these lumbering, bumbling, crumbling dinosaurs a requisite condition for humans to have the opportunity to create, distribute, access or enjoy art, in any of its forms, anywhere. I'll be happy to watch them suffer, and eventually die. And that's on them. 100%. [1] http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/05/21/another-member-of-the-overpaid/ http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/05/21/a... (edit: quote formatting)

by Ryanmf 15y ago

jongraehl 15y ago

"a $200 cell phone can record higher quality video for a longer period of time than a $15,000 professional camera and $40,000 worth of film could 15 years ago" Definitely untrue. Consider just the lens.

Ryanmf 15y ago
Noted. I'm willing to rescind that bit, unnecessary hyperbole intended to drive home the point that most of the scarcities which have driven up the real costs of media production over the years have recently evaporated, yet the "budgets" and the compensation which producers expect—and apparently, "deserve"—remain astronomical. You'll note that despite its phenomenal financial success, Avatar was unsuccessful in its bid for Best Picture, an accolade which one would assume is of greater importance than "moneymoneymoneymoneymoney" to artists (read: the people who actually make this stuff). The Hurt Locker—a film which cost ~$11M to produce—came away with that honor. Perhaps if Mr. Gianopulos is concerned with ensuring his fair compensation, he should stop allowing James Cameron to convince him it costs $300M to make a movie people will pay to see. As an aside, if you want to float me $55,000 I bet I can find a way to arrange a few dozen iPhone camera sensors into an array that would beat the pants off of any "professional" solution available c. 1995.

yuhong 15y ago

Yea, many of this I am well aware of already. In fact, I have a series on artificial scarcity and it's problems. The problem is how to get the media companies to finally change and fix the problem completely. Doing the debugging to find out exactly what is happening internally would be a good idea.

yuhong 15y ago
For example, has someone investigated the exact history of "Hollywood accounting"?
- Ryanmf 15y ago
  I, for one, would love to know where those hundreds of millions to produce Avatar went, for instance. I wonder what slice of that pie was attributed to "Marketing Expense." Turns out it's free to upload a video (like, a trailer, let's say) to YouTube and link to it elsewhere. Go figure. But insofar as media conglomerates addressing this matter internally, why would they? It's not a problem for them. Their revenues have been on a steady climb since ever. They know god damn well how little overlap exists in the groups "definitely going to pay for it" and "would consider downloading it for free." But they would have you believe that every "illegal" download represents a lost conversion. Now there's blood in the water, because "Hollywood" is one of the few industries left in America which still makes any money, and as belts continue to tighten, highly compensated lobbyists (including the most highly compensated, Cary Sherman [1]) will be more and more successful in convincing conservative politicians that they need to vote to protect entrepreneurship and (not really) free market capitalism, and liberal politicians that they need to lend their support to secure the livelihoods of our poor struggling artists. The more sinister elements in all of our governing bodies will jump at any opportunity to introduce legislation which further erodes liberty but allows them to monitor/control that damn Internet thing. All the while, most artists still get fucked by the system, ClearChannel/LiveNation/GoldenVoice are still shitty, evil monopolies, and the executives of major media firms laugh uproariously all the way to the bank. I sincerely doubt that the change will come from within. Not that there aren't people who work for those organizations who care passionately about the arts, who understand technology and its implications in significant and meaningful ways, who generally have their hearts in the right places. There will be a place for them in the arts economy of the future, but somebody new will be signing their cheques (or bitcoins). The decision-makers at the top are the ones who give off the impression that they'd prefer to hide in their opulent executive chambers, doing their damndest to legislate their competitors out of existence, and ultimately bleed to death, gripping stacks of money, gold bullion spilling from their pockets, then actually compete on the free market, and perhaps die an honorable death. The Guardian conducted an interview with electronic music pioneer, brilliant composer, omni-talented artist and all-around genius Brian Eno last year, wherein he stated the following: "I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn't last, and now it's running out. I don't particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you'd be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history's moving along." Two important points here: 1. This was going to happen no matter what. These firms rose to prominence during an odd period in the ongoing history of our world civilization when ideas, emotions, and artistic expressions could be recorded, duplicated, and feasibly distributed to consumers around the world. They happened to exist at an exact moment on the timeline when it was just cheap enough that it could be accomplished, but just expensive enough that a large firm was required to organize workers, consolidate (what was, at the time, very expensive) equipment, and coordinate distribution to drive marginal costs down. That moment in time is passing. Marginal costs to produce and distribute media are rapidly approaching zero. 2. The inevitability of these changes in market conditions is no reason to vilify media conglomerates. They did just spend about 60 years betting on all the wrong horses, but no one could know that the Internet (and all it entails) was coming. The reason to vilify these organizations lies in their reactions to these changes. I'm not going to go down the list, suffice it to say that much resentment towards labels/studios/production groups/etc. has built up, not just on behalf of artists and others with a dog in the fight, but in average consumers. That resentment just didn't exist a decade or two ago. The "rights-holders" fought the inevitable, and now not only are they going to lose, but they've so antagonized their customers—the only people who may have been able to prop them up long-term if only due to sympathy—that people who previously wouldn't have given a shit are now positively giddy at the idea of someone like Jim Gianopulos standing, defeated and alone, with nothing but a stupid look on his face and all his fucking whale blubber. I assert that in no way is the continued existence of these lumbering, bumbling, crumbling dinosaurs a requisite condition for humans to have the opportunity to create, distribute, access or enjoy art, in any of its forms, anywhere. I'll be happy to watch them suffer, and eventually die. And that's on them. 100%. [1] http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/05/21/another-member-of-the-overpaid/ http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/05/21/a... (edit: quote formatting)