5 ms·

In Defense of Piracy

39 points by makimaki 18y ago

pavelludiq 18y ago
The song is "futuristic sex robots - fuck the mpaa" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLB8wysMbY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLB8wysMbY
radley 18y ago
Lessig FTW Deregulate amateur remix: We need to restore a copyright law that leaves "amateur creativity" free from regulation. Before the 20th century, this culture flourished. The 21st century could see its return. Digital technologies have democratized the ability to create and re-create the culture around us. Where the creativity is an amateur remix, the law should leave it alone. It should deregulate amateur remix.
Herring 18y ago
If videos like Ms. Lenz's are so valuable, why aren't they & others like them being shared at mininova? One glance at the popular file sharing sites should convince anyone that piracy doesn't need the wsj's defense. Clearly we value this "remix culture" a lot less than we think we're supposed to.
- dimitar 18y ago
  The baby video wasn't marketed. Remix culture is pretty local most of the time. Viral videos are an exception - not every video uploaded on a video-sharing site is watched by millions. We do value it but its more intimate and less noticeable than mass culture. Most stuff people create - jokes, sketches, songs, voiced opinions, puns, parodies, etc. etc. isn't shared. In fact this "microculture" is the basis of our social lives. I think mass culture is both a result and a product of our social alienation. The Internet and a better, less snobbish school education in music, literature and art can make wonders for world peace and love ;-).
- pmjordan 18y ago
  Something doesn't have to have mass appeal to be valuable. In fact, that's pretty much what he's arguing for: amateur remixes, which might not have the reach of something with publisher backing, should not be illegal and punishable with extortion-style fines.
mkn 18y ago
Tax-code complexity regulating income is bad enough; tax-code complexity regulating speech is a First Amendment nightmare. The snippet from the article seems to suggest that the nightmare is due to the special sanctity of the First Amendment as compared to the Fourth. Rather, the nightmare comes from the burden of applying such a complex law as the DMCA with the frequency that would be necessary to enforce its provisions. It's the difference between doing your taxes once (or four times) per year vs. applying the DMCA every single time you turn the radio on. I like my Fourth Amendment, too, thank-you-very-much. Don't know why I felt compelled to point this all out.
tdavis 18y ago
At least this article tries to point out that there's a significant difference between "real" piracy and "who gives a damn" piracy. One of the biggest problems still remaining today is the fact that all the power is with the recording companies, at least when it comes to music; it's not with the people who actually created the work. Somehow, I doubt Prince would care that some baby is dancing to a grainy recording of one of his songs. Except for Metallica, I can't really think of an artist or band who would give a damn. These days many artists are releasing their work online for free or for... whatever you want to pay! The money is in live shows and the same people who go to live shows are generally the people who will pay for an album regardless of cost. I buy a possibly excessive amount of music. I also still pirate music on rare occasions where a band or artist is new to me and I want to see if those two songs I heard on Pandora were a fluke or they really are that awesome before buying a whole album (or discography, if it comes to that). What about TV? I pirate TV shows constantly. I pay for cable; I consider that good enough to justify not wasting 1/3 of my life watching commercials for shit I couldn't care less about; when I browse the Internet I don't have to wait for an ad to finish playing before reading whatever I went to the site for. If more TV shows were available for purchasable download, were priced less ridiculously (why should I pay $80 for the whole season 1 ep at a time when the DVD set is $40?), and were always WS HD, I would stop doing it. When I really like a show I buy it on DVD. Movies are essentially the same deal, except replace commercials with "it costs money just to find out if it's worth watching in the first place." As far as I'm concerned, piracy is such a big thing now only because it's finally possible to pirate this stuff. Society hasn't changed significantly. There's no secret plot. People are just slowly realizing that they don't have to waste time and money just to find out if they find something entertaining or good enough to warrant their time and money. Sure, there are people who are going to pirate everything and never buy it, but those same people had shoe boxes full of tapes they recorded off the radio. Who cares? It's an insignificant minority. If the record and movie companies are failing it's because people have decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate purchase... then they download them and realize they're not worthy of purchase, period.
- shiranaihito 18y ago
  > If the record and movie companies are failing it's because people have decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate purchase... then they download them and realize they're not worthy of purchase, period. It would be great if studios only produced great music and movies. Until now, a lot of crap has been produced knowingly because all they need is people going into theatres & music videos with scantily clad women waving their asses around. But in their quest for quality, how could the studios always choose only the productions which will actually rise to true greatness? A lot of good stuff would never make it through, but maybe that's alright since no one has enough time and money to discover all the music he would fall in love with anyway. You and I might enjoy high quality entertainment, but what about Most People? They're the ones buying and liking all that crap that has very little merit other than some random hot guy/girl being fascinating? It's problematic. Smart people want quality, but most people will settle for whatever's rammed down their throats. As for me, I actually buy quite a lot of music that I really like, because I want it at maximum quality. I'm not as innocent when it comes to movies. Sometimes I download them, but rarely go see them in theatres. Sometimes I start watching a downloaded movie but stop because it's not good enough. Sometimes, a downloaded movie happens to be really enjoyable, but will I go buy it after watching? Nope.. The problem is that the re-use value of good music is pretty much infinite, but you'll rarely want to watch even a good movie again, so after seeing it, its value drops close to zero.
mseebach 18y ago
That's not a defence of piracy, it's a very reasonable argument that a subset of what we today call pirates, aren't.
- mariorz 18y ago
  Well, the subset that doesn't do looting at sea, aren't.
99Frogs 18y ago
The statistic that 95% of pirated music would not have been purchased, had piracy not been an option should be mentioned more often. The fact that someone violates copyright by pulling down the complete beach boys does not suggest that he would have purchased a $100 box set. The ease of piracy is the impetus. He would have happily gone without the product.
- netcan 18y ago
  Regardless, if piracy becomes legal & socially acceptable, it will remove an reason to buy a $100 box set at any point. You may still have your 95% rule, but you'll just have an average person 'owning' 2000% more music then they would have otherwise with 0% of the cost.
  - 99Frogs 18y ago
    I think it may settle at illegal and socially acceptable, much like driving faster than the speed limit - punishable in rare cases. And people will feel about as much shame for having done it. I'm not arguing that piracy should be legal, but that it should be just about as illegal as speeding.
    - netcan 18y ago
      That kind of a fuzzy equilibrium is what we're at now. Most people do it. Officially you can't. If you do it to make money, they'll come after you. Some people think it's wrong. Lots of others think its kinda wrong. What you do get on these sorts of threads everywhere from here to spamblog is people saying something along the lines of: I pirate some things that I want to listen to. If I like it/it's good enough/it's reasonably priced/ I like the artist, I buy a copy. The power is in the hands of the 'consumer.' They decide if they want to pay or not based on their own criteria. That's not ownership! That's beerware. Consumption is not tied to purchase. The record companies & friends play up to this trying to increase the moral pressure. This seems to have the effect of increasing the above sentiment. Anyway we're stuck in this no man's land. How sustainable is it? I don't think it is sustainable at all. We are following the music lives in a cd protocol like a cargo cult. People are going to buy cds of artists they like because they remember that is how they used to do it. That memory will fade, the cd player will disappear & we'll still be buying licences in the form of a cd? I don't think so. What's the alternative? Buy the license online? People will go online & literally make a donation to a millionaire? Something's gotta give *If there is a proper recession, maybe we'll see donations to artists in the form of cd purchases go down with donations to normal charities.
jgfoot 18y ago
"Adapted from "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig, to be published by The Penguin Press on Oct. 16, 2008. <i>Copyright by Lawrence Lessig, 2008. Printed by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.</i>" Holy crap, irony overload. Publishing this remixed adaptation required Lessig's publisher's permission.
ericwaller 18y ago
On their view of the law, she is liable to a fine of up to $150,000 for sharing 29 seconds of Holden dancing My biggest problem with these piracy disputes is the amount of damages involved. I realize that the record companies are claiming that they missed out on sales, but imagine this: You run a red light (breaking the law) and hit an executive on the way to a big client meeting. Are you liable for his missing out on a multimillion dollar contract?
known 18y ago
Sometimes Piracy = Marketing
fallentimes 18y ago
Buying albums doesn't support the talent - it supports the suits. Margin wise, artists make jack shit from albums. They make significantly higher cuts from touring, but even that isn't enough. I wish there was an easy way to donate to the bands directly. No TPS and no big labels taking 90%. Clean, easy, and direct. Tipjoy are you listening? :)
- sgibat 18y ago
  Of course, most people don't pirate for that reason -- they do it because it's free. A site for any band to upload their music to be available for free with a built in donation system would be popular indeed. Maybe even profitable?
- ivankirigin 18y ago
  Music is ridiculously litigious, but we have plans for the space. If you like, you can submit any band's site to Tipjoy right now, e.g. http://tipjoy.com/joy/90578/ http://tipjoy.com/joy/90578/
josefresco 18y ago
How about the argument that the branding of online 'theft' as 'piracy' has been a boon to the offline Pirate product/apparel business?

39 points by makimaki 18y ago

The song is "futuristic sex robots - fuck the mpaa" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLB8wysMbY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnLB8wysMbY

radley 18y ago

Lessig FTW Deregulate amateur remix: We need to restore a copyright law that leaves "amateur creativity" free from regulation. Before the 20th century, this culture flourished. The 21st century could see its return. Digital technologies have democratized the ability to create and re-create the culture around us. Where the creativity is an amateur remix, the law should leave it alone. It should deregulate amateur remix.

Herring 18y ago

If videos like Ms. Lenz's are so valuable, why aren't they & others like them being shared at mininova? One glance at the popular file sharing sites should convince anyone that piracy doesn't need the wsj's defense. Clearly we value this "remix culture" a lot less than we think we're supposed to.

dimitar 18y ago
The baby video wasn't marketed. Remix culture is pretty local most of the time. Viral videos are an exception - not every video uploaded on a video-sharing site is watched by millions. We do value it but its more intimate and less noticeable than mass culture. Most stuff people create - jokes, sketches, songs, voiced opinions, puns, parodies, etc. etc. isn't shared. In fact this "microculture" is the basis of our social lives. I think mass culture is both a result and a product of our social alienation. The Internet and a better, less snobbish school education in music, literature and art can make wonders for world peace and love ;-).
pmjordan 18y ago
Something doesn't have to have mass appeal to be valuable. In fact, that's pretty much what he's arguing for: amateur remixes, which might not have the reach of something with publisher backing, should not be illegal and punishable with extortion-style fines.

mkn 18y ago

Tax-code complexity regulating income is bad enough; tax-code complexity regulating speech is a First Amendment nightmare. The snippet from the article seems to suggest that the nightmare is due to the special sanctity of the First Amendment as compared to the Fourth. Rather, the nightmare comes from the burden of applying such a complex law as the DMCA with the frequency that would be necessary to enforce its provisions. It's the difference between doing your taxes once (or four times) per year vs. applying the DMCA every single time you turn the radio on. I like my Fourth Amendment, too, thank-you-very-much. Don't know why I felt compelled to point this all out.

tdavis 18y ago

At least this article tries to point out that there's a significant difference between "real" piracy and "who gives a damn" piracy. One of the biggest problems still remaining today is the fact that all the power is with the recording companies, at least when it comes to music; it's not with the people who actually created the work. Somehow, I doubt Prince would care that some baby is dancing to a grainy recording of one of his songs. Except for Metallica, I can't really think of an artist or band who would give a damn. These days many artists are releasing their work online for free or for... whatever you want to pay! The money is in live shows and the same people who go to live shows are generally the people who will pay for an album regardless of cost. I buy a possibly excessive amount of music. I also still pirate music on rare occasions where a band or artist is new to me and I want to see if those two songs I heard on Pandora were a fluke or they really are that awesome before buying a whole album (or discography, if it comes to that). What about TV? I pirate TV shows constantly. I pay for cable; I consider that good enough to justify not wasting 1/3 of my life watching commercials for shit I couldn't care less about; when I browse the Internet I don't have to wait for an ad to finish playing before reading whatever I went to the site for. If more TV shows were available for purchasable download, were priced less ridiculously (why should I pay $80 for the whole season 1 ep at a time when the DVD set is $40?), and were always WS HD, I would stop doing it. When I really like a show I buy it on DVD. Movies are essentially the same deal, except replace commercials with "it costs money just to find out if it's worth watching in the first place." As far as I'm concerned, piracy is such a big thing now only because it's finally possible to pirate this stuff. Society hasn't changed significantly. There's no secret plot. People are just slowly realizing that they don't have to waste time and money just to find out if they find something entertaining or good enough to warrant their time and money. Sure, there are people who are going to pirate everything and never buy it, but those same people had shoe boxes full of tapes they recorded off the radio. Who cares? It's an insignificant minority. If the record and movie companies are failing it's because people have decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate purchase... then they download them and realize they're not worthy of purchase, period.

shiranaihito 18y ago
> If the record and movie companies are failing it's because people have decided that their products aren't worthy of immediate purchase... then they download them and realize they're not worthy of purchase, period. It would be great if studios only produced great music and movies. Until now, a lot of crap has been produced knowingly because all they need is people going into theatres & music videos with scantily clad women waving their asses around. But in their quest for quality, how could the studios always choose only the productions which will actually rise to true greatness? A lot of good stuff would never make it through, but maybe that's alright since no one has enough time and money to discover all the music he would fall in love with anyway. You and I might enjoy high quality entertainment, but what about Most People? They're the ones buying and liking all that crap that has very little merit other than some random hot guy/girl being fascinating? It's problematic. Smart people want quality, but most people will settle for whatever's rammed down their throats. As for me, I actually buy quite a lot of music that I really like, because I want it at maximum quality. I'm not as innocent when it comes to movies. Sometimes I download them, but rarely go see them in theatres. Sometimes I start watching a downloaded movie but stop because it's not good enough. Sometimes, a downloaded movie happens to be really enjoyable, but will I go buy it after watching? Nope.. The problem is that the re-use value of good music is pretty much infinite, but you'll rarely want to watch even a good movie again, so after seeing it, its value drops close to zero.

mseebach 18y ago

That's not a defence of piracy, it's a very reasonable argument that a subset of what we today call pirates, aren't.

mariorz 18y ago
Well, the subset that doesn't do looting at sea, aren't.

99Frogs 18y ago

The statistic that 95% of pirated music would not have been purchased, had piracy not been an option should be mentioned more often. The fact that someone violates copyright by pulling down the complete beach boys does not suggest that he would have purchased a $100 box set. The ease of piracy is the impetus. He would have happily gone without the product.

netcan 18y ago
Regardless, if piracy becomes legal & socially acceptable, it will remove an reason to buy a $100 box set at any point. You may still have your 95% rule, but you'll just have an average person 'owning' 2000% more music then they would have otherwise with 0% of the cost.
- 99Frogs 18y ago
  I think it may settle at illegal and socially acceptable, much like driving faster than the speed limit - punishable in rare cases. And people will feel about as much shame for having done it. I'm not arguing that piracy should be legal, but that it should be just about as illegal as speeding.
  - netcan 18y ago
    That kind of a fuzzy equilibrium is what we're at now. Most people do it. Officially you can't. If you do it to make money, they'll come after you. Some people think it's wrong. Lots of others think its kinda wrong. What you do get on these sorts of threads everywhere from here to spamblog is people saying something along the lines of: I pirate some things that I want to listen to. If I like it/it's good enough/it's reasonably priced/ I like the artist, I buy a copy. The power is in the hands of the 'consumer.' They decide if they want to pay or not based on their own criteria. That's not ownership! That's beerware. Consumption is not tied to purchase. The record companies & friends play up to this trying to increase the moral pressure. This seems to have the effect of increasing the above sentiment. Anyway we're stuck in this no man's land. How sustainable is it? I don't think it is sustainable at all. We are following the music lives in a cd protocol like a cargo cult. People are going to buy cds of artists they like because they remember that is how they used to do it. That memory will fade, the cd player will disappear & we'll still be buying licences in the form of a cd? I don't think so. What's the alternative? Buy the license online? People will go online & literally make a donation to a millionaire? Something's gotta give *If there is a proper recession, maybe we'll see donations to artists in the form of cd purchases go down with donations to normal charities.

jgfoot 18y ago

"Adapted from "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig, to be published by The Penguin Press on Oct. 16, 2008. <i>Copyright by Lawrence Lessig, 2008. Printed by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.</i>" Holy crap, irony overload. Publishing this remixed adaptation required Lessig's publisher's permission.

ericwaller 18y ago

On their view of the law, she is liable to a fine of up to $150,000 for sharing 29 seconds of Holden dancing My biggest problem with these piracy disputes is the amount of damages involved. I realize that the record companies are claiming that they missed out on sales, but imagine this: You run a red light (breaking the law) and hit an executive on the way to a big client meeting. Are you liable for his missing out on a multimillion dollar contract?

known 18y ago

Sometimes Piracy = Marketing

fallentimes 18y ago

Buying albums doesn't support the talent - it supports the suits. Margin wise, artists make jack shit from albums. They make significantly higher cuts from touring, but even that isn't enough. I wish there was an easy way to donate to the bands directly. No TPS and no big labels taking 90%. Clean, easy, and direct. Tipjoy are you listening? :)

sgibat 18y ago
Of course, most people don't pirate for that reason -- they do it because it's free. A site for any band to upload their music to be available for free with a built in donation system would be popular indeed. Maybe even profitable?
ivankirigin 18y ago
Music is ridiculously litigious, but we have plans for the space. If you like, you can submit any band's site to Tipjoy right now, e.g. http://tipjoy.com/joy/90578/ http://tipjoy.com/joy/90578/

josefresco 18y ago

How about the argument that the branding of online 'theft' as 'piracy' has been a boon to the offline Pirate product/apparel business?