18 ms·

This is nothing more than a thinly-disguised allegory about piracy in the music industry. There are several big differences between the music and the software i

by kylec 15y ago

This is nothing more than a thinly-disguised allegory about piracy in the music industry. There are several big differences between the music and the software industry which I won't go into, except to say that: even taking this story at face value, for the developers to then start suing everyone downloading the fake copies of the app would still be a huge dick move.

socratic 15y ago
Further, what is the message of the allegory supposed to be? The analogy between music and tech suggests that the two hits-based industries selling digital goods are not so different after all. But why would our morality in one case be so different from the other case? If anything, this allegory seems to suggest to me that the recording industry has committed one of the biggest public relations bungles of our lifetimes. People who wouldn't think to pirate a mobile app would pirate music without a second thought thanks to widespread lawsuits, pay-for-play, price fixing, and of course, ease.
- shantanubala 15y ago
  Also, people can support an musician by buying concert tickets and merchandise. Software doesn't let people "morally offset" piracy in other ways.
  - briandear 15y ago
    The whole idea of moral offsetting is nonsense. That's like saying that I'm going to steal Oreos from the grocery store but make up for it by buying milk.
    - zecho 15y ago
      To be fair, it's more like saying you'd wait for Oreos to come to town, pay an outrageous sum of money to view them and then buy milk at four times what you'd normally pay for it. It's not that I think music piracy is justified, but let's not understate the reality of merchandising and touring prices in the music industry. When people feel they're being ripped off, they're probably going to be more likely to not feel so bad when they return the favor.
    - whatusername 15y ago
      Do you live in a country where there are restrictions on products you would like to purchase? (as in -- anywhere that's not the continental US). Perhaps an ebook that's not available in your country. If the only way to consume a good is to obtain it illegally (and there is no loss of the orginal owner - I'm talking about digital copies) then moral offsetting is the only slightly moral way to consume/acquire the item.
      - saw-lau 15y ago
        ...or not consume it in the first place. I don't understand where this 'right to be able to get everything I want' has come from in recent years. Sometimes it sucks to not get all you want, but - you know - that's life.
    - shantanubala 15y ago
      I didn't say it was ethical, but you can't deny that it definitely makes it easier for people to justify piracy in their minds.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  what is the message of the allegory supposed to be? It sounded to me like the message was supposed to be "it doesn't sound so awesome when you see it from the other side of the looking glass, now does it". (It felt like it was targeted at people who can identify with developing mobile apps)
  - babebridou 15y ago
    The author said in the comments: "The point of the article is that making that choice for someone else is wrong." It's my feeling that in this article at least, the author does not really care about the rights and wrong of copying, piracy, intellectual property, etc. He is scared by relatively few people on the internet being both lawmaker, judge, party and executioner when it comes to the monetization of a digital product, and the reason why he is scared is that these few people are not even potential customers.
    - earbitscom 15y ago
      Actually, I'm scared that we live in a world where people think they're entitled to anything they can take without consequence. The fact that they aren't taking the original means nothing. They have broken a social contract with the creator of content that, ironically, they really enjoy and would like to see more of in the future. The problem of someone taking copyrighted content and making it available for others is a small one. The big problem is the many millions of people who take advantage of it. If everyone recognized that they're not entitled to anything except their basic human rights, none of which have anything to do with access to MP3s, then others posting that content online wouldn't matter. The hope with this article was a little empathy from a community that often leans toward not caring about copyright law as it pertains to music. While many chose to go the route of poking tiny holes in parts of the analogy, plenty didn't realize it was an allegory and talked about how messed up it was. Many of them the same people who fight music copyright tooth and nail. It's just sad to think that everybody enjoys music, just like they enjoy software, and so many other things that can be easily taken, and yet don't care if the people who create it see enough benefit to keep making it for them. It's short sighted and will result in fewer people having the time to become experts in these crafts, which is a loss for everyone. Sure, quantity is at an all time high, but in art that hardly matters.
- jimmyhwang 15y ago
  I feel the same way. I don't understand the point of this allegory other than to insight discussion and get ranked highly on HN. Maybe I'm used to reading "easy" articles that provide a problem and possible solution to it. I haven't read the allegory of the cave since college so I'm not used to thinking this hard... (laziness on my part I guess)
ericHosick 15y ago
I really enjoy the ease at which I can buy things on an app store (The music industry has/had problems because they try/tried to control the sales process). The development community has a great solution: app stores. But these only work if the people who run the app stores are willing to help protect the products of those who sell in that store. I think this is what the post is mostly about (and has little to do with the music industry). To pirate work on the net... Whatever. To pirate work by placing it in the same app store that your product is sold. That is just messed up.
baddox 15y ago
From a business/industry perspective (ignoring for now the ethics of piracy or the wisdom of combating it with mass lawsuits), the biggest difference between digital software and digital music is that lots of software providers are still providing value from distribution. Especially with database-driven apps and SaaS products, distribution (hosting) is still most of what you're paying for. If someone leaked the back end source code for Github or Dropbox, of course there would be people who would host them for themselves and avoid paying, but I can't imagine it would cut into their revenues at all. But with music, as soon as it's released in a digital format, anyone with an internet connection has near-frictionless access—the music creators are no longer offering any value from distribution other than the convenience of online stores like iTunes or the artwork and collectibility of a physical CD. The music industry and smaller musical groups/labels are certainly figuring this out, and experimenting with ways of offering something of value. Removing DRM was a big win because DRM did nothing except ruin the supposed convenience of online purchases. Cloud and subscription services (both pay and ad-supported) offer convenience and even better immediate availability than piracy.
- dekz 15y ago
  Nine Inch Nails seem to be one of the few bands who are able to look into the future. They offer most(all?) of their music for free to download and make their money touring and selling other merchandise.
  - epicureanideal 15y ago
    In a future with rampant piracy, what I see is a whole lot less music and software. We won't even notice. It's not like we'll wake up and suddenly apps will be gone. We probably won't even be able to measure a decrease year-over-year in app production. What we'll never notice is that twice as many apps or ten times as many apps would have been created, or would have had much better quality, if the creators had been properly incentivized.
    - earbitscom 15y ago
      Amen.
briandear 15y ago
It's still theft however you slice it.
- lurker19 15y ago
  It is still a highly synthetic violation from a particular and recent legal theory however you slice it.
oelewapperke 15y ago
Just my .2c. The music industry is (mostly) suing people for uploading music, not downloading it. The fact that using bittorrent to download a track obviously constitutes uploading of music and lots of people do this does not change the facts.

by kylec 15y ago

socratic 15y ago

Further, what is the message of the allegory supposed to be? The analogy between music and tech suggests that the two hits-based industries selling digital goods are not so different after all. But why would our morality in one case be so different from the other case? If anything, this allegory seems to suggest to me that the recording industry has committed one of the biggest public relations bungles of our lifetimes. People who wouldn't think to pirate a mobile app would pirate music without a second thought thanks to widespread lawsuits, pay-for-play, price fixing, and of course, ease.

shantanubala 15y ago
Also, people can support an musician by buying concert tickets and merchandise. Software doesn't let people "morally offset" piracy in other ways.
- briandear 15y ago
  The whole idea of moral offsetting is nonsense. That's like saying that I'm going to steal Oreos from the grocery store but make up for it by buying milk.
  - zecho 15y ago
    To be fair, it's more like saying you'd wait for Oreos to come to town, pay an outrageous sum of money to view them and then buy milk at four times what you'd normally pay for it. It's not that I think music piracy is justified, but let's not understate the reality of merchandising and touring prices in the music industry. When people feel they're being ripped off, they're probably going to be more likely to not feel so bad when they return the favor.
  - whatusername 15y ago
    Do you live in a country where there are restrictions on products you would like to purchase? (as in -- anywhere that's not the continental US). Perhaps an ebook that's not available in your country. If the only way to consume a good is to obtain it illegally (and there is no loss of the orginal owner - I'm talking about digital copies) then moral offsetting is the only slightly moral way to consume/acquire the item.
    - saw-lau 15y ago
      ...or not consume it in the first place. I don't understand where this 'right to be able to get everything I want' has come from in recent years. Sometimes it sucks to not get all you want, but - you know - that's life.
  - shantanubala 15y ago
    I didn't say it was ethical, but you can't deny that it definitely makes it easier for people to justify piracy in their minds.
sliverstorm 15y ago
what is the message of the allegory supposed to be? It sounded to me like the message was supposed to be "it doesn't sound so awesome when you see it from the other side of the looking glass, now does it". (It felt like it was targeted at people who can identify with developing mobile apps)
- babebridou 15y ago
  The author said in the comments: "The point of the article is that making that choice for someone else is wrong." It's my feeling that in this article at least, the author does not really care about the rights and wrong of copying, piracy, intellectual property, etc. He is scared by relatively few people on the internet being both lawmaker, judge, party and executioner when it comes to the monetization of a digital product, and the reason why he is scared is that these few people are not even potential customers.
  - earbitscom 15y ago
    Actually, I'm scared that we live in a world where people think they're entitled to anything they can take without consequence. The fact that they aren't taking the original means nothing. They have broken a social contract with the creator of content that, ironically, they really enjoy and would like to see more of in the future. The problem of someone taking copyrighted content and making it available for others is a small one. The big problem is the many millions of people who take advantage of it. If everyone recognized that they're not entitled to anything except their basic human rights, none of which have anything to do with access to MP3s, then others posting that content online wouldn't matter. The hope with this article was a little empathy from a community that often leans toward not caring about copyright law as it pertains to music. While many chose to go the route of poking tiny holes in parts of the analogy, plenty didn't realize it was an allegory and talked about how messed up it was. Many of them the same people who fight music copyright tooth and nail. It's just sad to think that everybody enjoys music, just like they enjoy software, and so many other things that can be easily taken, and yet don't care if the people who create it see enough benefit to keep making it for them. It's short sighted and will result in fewer people having the time to become experts in these crafts, which is a loss for everyone. Sure, quantity is at an all time high, but in art that hardly matters.
jimmyhwang 15y ago
I feel the same way. I don't understand the point of this allegory other than to insight discussion and get ranked highly on HN. Maybe I'm used to reading "easy" articles that provide a problem and possible solution to it. I haven't read the allegory of the cave since college so I'm not used to thinking this hard... (laziness on my part I guess)

ericHosick 15y ago

I really enjoy the ease at which I can buy things on an app store (The music industry has/had problems because they try/tried to control the sales process). The development community has a great solution: app stores. But these only work if the people who run the app stores are willing to help protect the products of those who sell in that store. I think this is what the post is mostly about (and has little to do with the music industry). To pirate work on the net... Whatever. To pirate work by placing it in the same app store that your product is sold. That is just messed up.

baddox 15y ago

From a business/industry perspective (ignoring for now the ethics of piracy or the wisdom of combating it with mass lawsuits), the biggest difference between digital software and digital music is that lots of software providers are still providing value from distribution. Especially with database-driven apps and SaaS products, distribution (hosting) is still most of what you're paying for. If someone leaked the back end source code for Github or Dropbox, of course there would be people who would host them for themselves and avoid paying, but I can't imagine it would cut into their revenues at all. But with music, as soon as it's released in a digital format, anyone with an internet connection has near-frictionless access—the music creators are no longer offering any value from distribution other than the convenience of online stores like iTunes or the artwork and collectibility of a physical CD. The music industry and smaller musical groups/labels are certainly figuring this out, and experimenting with ways of offering something of value. Removing DRM was a big win because DRM did nothing except ruin the supposed convenience of online purchases. Cloud and subscription services (both pay and ad-supported) offer convenience and even better immediate availability than piracy.

dekz 15y ago
Nine Inch Nails seem to be one of the few bands who are able to look into the future. They offer most(all?) of their music for free to download and make their money touring and selling other merchandise.
- epicureanideal 15y ago
  In a future with rampant piracy, what I see is a whole lot less music and software. We won't even notice. It's not like we'll wake up and suddenly apps will be gone. We probably won't even be able to measure a decrease year-over-year in app production. What we'll never notice is that twice as many apps or ten times as many apps would have been created, or would have had much better quality, if the creators had been properly incentivized.
  - earbitscom 15y ago
    Amen.

briandear 15y ago

It's still theft however you slice it.

lurker19 15y ago
It is still a highly synthetic violation from a particular and recent legal theory however you slice it.

oelewapperke 15y ago

Just my .2c. The music industry is (mostly) suing people for uploading music, not downloading it. The fact that using bittorrent to download a track obviously constitutes uploading of music and lots of people do this does not change the facts.