4 ms·

There are so many players in this overall story, and so few good guys. In one corner of the ring we have the content industry which seems to care far more abou

There are so many players in this overall story, and so few good guys. In one corner of the ring we have the content industry which seems to care far more about chasing pirates than with making life nice for the people who will actually pay them. Customers who play by the rules are "rewarded" with region coding, DRM, and lots of arbitrary restrictions. In the other corner are people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying the creators anything. When confronted with with the moral/economic questionability of this approach, they have an extensive set of indignant rationalizations prepared; some of these are true but irrelevant to helping content creators get paid ("record companies are dinosaurs"), some of these are wishful thinking ("they can make money in other ways"), all of these are fronts for the fact that they just like getting things for free. In another corner are governments and law enforcement which are gung-ho about legislating against piracy and prosecuting it, without understanding or properly considering the ramifications (see SOPA). The good guys are: people who will pay a reasonable fee or watch a small/reasonable amount of advertising to consume the content they like, content creators who release their stuff in a convenient way without requiring an absurd amount of control, tech companies that are providing media services that strike a balance between creators and consumers (DRM-free Amazon, Google Play, Apple iTunes is getting better but is still pretty locked down). May the good guys eventually win.

kiba 15y ago
In the other corner are people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying the creators anything. I don't feel entitled to anything and I never stole anything from the creators. If they wish to stop producing new stuff, that's fine with me. I have thousand of other ways to enjoy myself, some of which is forgotten public domain content. It's nice to feel moral outrage about people who "felt entitled", but it doesn't make you money. The good guys are: people who will pay a reasonable fee or watch a small/reasonable amount of advertising to consume the content they like, I want convenience and I gladly do pay for said convenience. The problem is the lack of convenient options and lot of missing titles.
icebraining 15y ago
In the other corner are people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying the creators anything They're probably less than you think. Many "pirates" pay, and in fact pay more than the average person. some of these are wishful thinking ("they can make money in other ways") In the UK, and despite the lower income from album sales, the total income for artists has grown: http://www.hypebot.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2012875f077e8970c-pi http://www.hypebot.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2012875f077e8970c... Likewise, despite whining about piracy, the MPAA has had five years of record profits from 2005 to 2010. Maybe it's not so wishful thinking?
- haberman 15y ago
  > They're probably less than you think. What evidence do you have for this? Every time I want to believe this is true, I meet someone (IRL) who says something completely blatant like "I just discovered BitTorrent, which is great because now I don't have to pay for movies any more.". (that is a direct quote from someone I met yesterday). Anecdotes aren't data, but where's your non-anecdotal data?
  - toemetoch 15y ago
    Isn't the iTunes Store a valid example? Its users have demonstrated that they'll pay per song instead of buying the entire album. Apparently that's what the consumer wants. Secondly, there is actually a media business on the internet that's flourishing with a pure online model: porn. You can get it for free everywhere, yet people keep paying for it (also online) .
  - icebraining 15y ago
    Study by the Canadian Intellectual Property Policy group: However, our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing. http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/eng/ip01462.html http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/eng/ip01462.html Study by the BI Norwegian School of Management: Researchers found that those who downloaded "free" music – whether from lawful or seedy sources – were also 10 times more likely to pay for music. This would make music pirates the industry's largest audience for digital sales. Wisely, the study did not rely on music pirates' honesty. Researchers asked music buyers to prove that they had proof of purchase. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pira...
InclinedPlane 15y ago
This is a vast oversimplification of the problem. Sharing is not always piracy. People tend to recognize sharing on a small scale (of movies, books, music, etc.) as on balance a good thing, and overall functionally promotional for the artists and makers who are having their work shared. The truth is that the same mechanism exists even on a larger, less personal scale. Unfortunately, the debate has been so polluted by vitriol and misrepresentation that this gets labelled as "piracy" and "theft". Yes, there are some people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying for it. But this is not "a corner", it is not the norm for people who "pirate" or "share". The average person who downloads movies off of bit torrent is someone who does so as part of a larger set of media consuming behaviors which includes paying for cable, buying movies on disc, and seeing movies in theaters. Also, current evidence tends to lead toward the conclusion that engaging in "piracy" on balance results in more support for artists, not less. On the whole I very much agree with Jonathan Coulton's stance on piracy (http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/ http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/), make good stuff and make it easy to buy it. I've never seen a case where that has failed to reward the artists.
- haberman 15y ago
  > Sharing is not always piracy. Didn't say it was. Actually I didn't use the word "piracy" at all (except in reference to the content industry and their perception of what "piracy" is). You're preaching the party line without reading what I've written. For example, I have no problem with someone using BitTorrent to download something they already bought once, but that they can't use on a new device because of unreasonable DRM. I only have a problem with people who are not paying creators at all, or justify a large amount of copying because of a small/moderate amount of legitimate purchases. I also agree that a limited amount of free sharing between friends is totally reasonable.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    I read exactly what you wrote. You used a characterization of media sharing as "piracy", as "people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying the creators anything". As I said, this is an incorrect and vastly oversimplified view of the issue. It's not just about heavy handed law enforcement, or about the excesses of DRM, it's also about sharing. If we eliminate sharing (of music, movies, books, etc.) from the world in an effort to fight "piracy" we will have made a grave mistake. Indeed, I think the rampant levels of impersonal sharing we see today with things like bittorrent are probably better for content creators than more traditional levels enabled by libraries and friends and restricted by physical media forms. The important point I'm trying to make here is that the idea that everyone who reads a book, watches a movie, or listens to a song needs to have engaged in some economic transaction prior to doing so (through either direct purchase or subjection to advertising) is a wholly wrong and dangerous notion. We can, and do, live in a world where content creators are rewarded bountifully for the work and yet unregulated sharing runs wild and free.

kiba 15y ago

In the other corner are people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying the creators anything. I don't feel entitled to anything and I never stole anything from the creators. If they wish to stop producing new stuff, that's fine with me. I have thousand of other ways to enjoy myself, some of which is forgotten public domain content. It's nice to feel moral outrage about people who "felt entitled", but it doesn't make you money. The good guys are: people who will pay a reasonable fee or watch a small/reasonable amount of advertising to consume the content they like, I want convenience and I gladly do pay for said convenience. The problem is the lack of convenient options and lot of missing titles.

icebraining 15y ago

In the other corner are people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying the creators anything They're probably less than you think. Many "pirates" pay, and in fact pay more than the average person. some of these are wishful thinking ("they can make money in other ways") In the UK, and despite the lower income from album sales, the total income for artists has grown: http://www.hypebot.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2012875f077e8970c-pi http://www.hypebot.com/.a/6a00d83451b36c69e2012875f077e8970c... Likewise, despite whining about piracy, the MPAA has had five years of record profits from 2005 to 2010. Maybe it's not so wishful thinking?

haberman 15y ago
> They're probably less than you think. What evidence do you have for this? Every time I want to believe this is true, I meet someone (IRL) who says something completely blatant like "I just discovered BitTorrent, which is great because now I don't have to pay for movies any more.". (that is a direct quote from someone I met yesterday). Anecdotes aren't data, but where's your non-anecdotal data?
- toemetoch 15y ago
  Isn't the iTunes Store a valid example? Its users have demonstrated that they'll pay per song instead of buying the entire album. Apparently that's what the consumer wants. Secondly, there is actually a media business on the internet that's flourishing with a pure online model: porn. You can get it for free everywhere, yet people keep paying for it (also online) .
- icebraining 15y ago
  Study by the Canadian Intellectual Property Policy group: However, our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing. http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/eng/ip01462.html http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ippd-dppi.nsf/eng/ip01462.html Study by the BI Norwegian School of Management: Researchers found that those who downloaded "free" music – whether from lawful or seedy sources – were also 10 times more likely to pay for music. This would make music pirates the industry's largest audience for digital sales. Wisely, the study did not rely on music pirates' honesty. Researchers asked music buyers to prove that they had proof of purchase. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pira...

InclinedPlane 15y ago

This is a vast oversimplification of the problem. Sharing is not always piracy. People tend to recognize sharing on a small scale (of movies, books, music, etc.) as on balance a good thing, and overall functionally promotional for the artists and makers who are having their work shared. The truth is that the same mechanism exists even on a larger, less personal scale. Unfortunately, the debate has been so polluted by vitriol and misrepresentation that this gets labelled as "piracy" and "theft". Yes, there are some people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying for it. But this is not "a corner", it is not the norm for people who "pirate" or "share". The average person who downloads movies off of bit torrent is someone who does so as part of a larger set of media consuming behaviors which includes paying for cable, buying movies on disc, and seeing movies in theaters. Also, current evidence tends to lead toward the conclusion that engaging in "piracy" on balance results in more support for artists, not less. On the whole I very much agree with Jonathan Coulton's stance on piracy (http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/ http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/), make good stuff and make it easy to buy it. I've never seen a case where that has failed to reward the artists.

haberman 15y ago
> Sharing is not always piracy. Didn't say it was. Actually I didn't use the word "piracy" at all (except in reference to the content industry and their perception of what "piracy" is). You're preaching the party line without reading what I've written. For example, I have no problem with someone using BitTorrent to download something they already bought once, but that they can't use on a new device because of unreasonable DRM. I only have a problem with people who are not paying creators at all, or justify a large amount of copying because of a small/moderate amount of legitimate purchases. I also agree that a limited amount of free sharing between friends is totally reasonable.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  I read exactly what you wrote. You used a characterization of media sharing as "piracy", as "people who feel entitled to consume an arbitrary amount of music/movies without paying the creators anything". As I said, this is an incorrect and vastly oversimplified view of the issue. It's not just about heavy handed law enforcement, or about the excesses of DRM, it's also about sharing. If we eliminate sharing (of music, movies, books, etc.) from the world in an effort to fight "piracy" we will have made a grave mistake. Indeed, I think the rampant levels of impersonal sharing we see today with things like bittorrent are probably better for content creators than more traditional levels enabled by libraries and friends and restricted by physical media forms. The important point I'm trying to make here is that the idea that everyone who reads a book, watches a movie, or listens to a song needs to have engaged in some economic transaction prior to doing so (through either direct purchase or subjection to advertising) is a wholly wrong and dangerous notion. We can, and do, live in a world where content creators are rewarded bountifully for the work and yet unregulated sharing runs wild and free.