Fighting With Teenagers: A Copyright Story
jasonrobertbrown.com
jasonrobertbrown.com
This is likely his first encounter with a gift economy, its logic and its denizens (who are mostly, but not exclusively) teenagers. It would seem that the qualities he wants to attribute to the "teenage mind" are really traits of the gift economy that sprung up around trading digital sheet music.
Its easy to sympathize with him however. It may turn out that only a handful of generations found themselves in the peculiar circumstances that allowed them to cast elements of culture into items of physical property that could be mass produced but were not easily duplicated. It must be quite disorienting to find oneself at either edge of that transition.
Sure, his analogies fail at some point, just like most analogies. But that doesn't make his point invalid. Or yours valid, for that matter.
The problem still remains that his time is scarce -- no matter how easy it is to copy the media he uses to distribute his work. And that's what copyright is about: Not the scarcity of the media, but the scarcity of the time needed to create the master.
Or can you snap your fingers and have beautifully designed, perfectly written, and bug free software appear on your hard drive?
I wonder what the girl would have said if her boyfriend broke his promise to not publish some private photos of her, and shared these with his friends (and with others on a public website). That's obviously a gift economy but would she have found the argument convincing in such a case?
1. just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should do a thing [this nulls out the whole "b-b-but technology makes this possible now!" argument; for bonus points think of the implications of your stance regarding the availability of nuclear weapons]
2. you don't have a right to other people's work, automatically, by default, for free
3. if they make it available for free and/or say copy all you want -- that's fine, do it
4. ... but if they do not, you should honor their wishes regarding their own creation
5. ... if despite that, you do not, then you are unethical
Much, if not all, of this seems cultural, and inconsistent. Suppose I spend some time dreaming up a fabulous hair style. I plan to earn a living giving people this hair style. I go out and about, people see me with my fabulous hair style, and many like it. So they copy it, giving themselves and their friends the same hair style.
Do I have a supportable claim to ask, and expect, that no one may copy my hair style without my permission, without paying me? I can't imagine too many people would consider this a plausible idea, nor would many people be sympathetic.
For one, most folks would simply say, "Hey, you go out in public and people can see and easily copy your hair style! What did you expect?" "But", you reply, "just because they can doesn't mean they should."
Suppose too that I'm wearing a shirt that clearly says "Do Not Copy My Fabulous Hair Style." Does it change anything? Do my wishes regarding what I've created supersede reasonable expectations of what people are going to do, and what people think they are entitled to do?
People are constantly coming up with new things of varying originality and difficulty of creation. A turn of phrase. Color combinations in their dress or on their Web site. And no one is allowed, by default, to copy these things without prior permission and/or renumeration? That's crazy. Might as well outlaw culture.
Are restrictions on copying to be applied based on some expected financial gain? That's getting pretty circular; the gain is usually based on the expected scarcity. Are restrictions to be based on how hard it was to create something? That's just bizarre.
The arguments for not freely copying things seem based on a) the one who thinks of something gets to make the rules, and b) work should be rewarded. But there are so many instances where these don't apply that I don't see any consistent rationale other than that's just how the culture evolved based on the current technology and expectations of scarcity, plus the dictates of government meant to achieve some particular social or economic ends (as opposed to protecting some natural right).
1. The abuse of these rights by corporations. [e.g. 'patent-mills' that just crank out patents on any idea that pops into the heads of their engineers, even if it's just falls into the formula: "everyday object + {computers,internet} = brand new idea" or "patented idea 1 + {internet,computers} = patented idea 2" ]
2. The egregious way with which Congress/Corporations have extended the duration of IP rights to levels of absurdity that boggle the mind. Do people really believe that NBC would have had no reason to create a radio, and then television network if they were not guaranteed to still have copyrights on all of their content in the year 2010? Do you think that the person that wrote the "Happy Birthday" song, wouldn't have written it if they weren't guaranteed to hold a copyright until the year 2030 (not to mention that they took the melody from an earlier song, probably without licensing it... the horror)? From Wikipedia:
> The Summy Company registered for copyright in 1935, crediting
> authors Preston Ware Orem and Mrs. R.R. Forman. In 1990, Warner
> Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for U.S. $15
> million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at U.S. $5
> million.[5] Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims
> that U.S. copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized
> public performances of the song are technically illegal unless
> royalties are paid to it.
> 2. The egregious way with which Congress/Corporations have extended the duration of IP rights to levels of absurdity
I agree, but I've never seen anyone take a stand against that abuse. Eg: TPB steals from everyone, including independent artists, Open Source contributors, and people who support copyright reform.
I have a problem with having to respect the wishes of an author regarding to a copy of her work that I hold. Especially when the copy is on my computer. The reasons are simple: computers copy things around. They don't move them. Therefore, I can't really give that song I have on my computer. I can only give a copy of it. And maybe delete my copy afterwards.
Now there's the real problem: the author would have me delete my copy, because it simulate the inconveniences of physical supports, which help her sustain her business model. There is a clear conflict between me potentially hurting the revenue stream of the author, and the author wanting me to artificially restrain my behaviour. I don't know how to solve it. But actively deleting my copy of each work I "give" or "lend" can't be the solution.
I also believe it shouldn't.
Why? Because it is the same song we have been hearing from the record companies for years, and that hasn't changed that many opinions.
And I don't even feel sorry for them - do the world really need another love song? Because if not, we should consider killing copyright.
And I won't drop one tear if Disney goes bankrupt - after all they took all the stories from the public domain.
You are right. It has nothing at all to do with duplication or how easy it is. One of technology's greatest and most subtle tricks is the elimination of scarcity. Its not that I can take one for myself (no matter how easy or hard it might be), its that when I do, I don't take yours. It up-ends the economic apple cart in a way that is very non-intuitive and difficult for the human mind to grasp via "common sense".
Its easy to comprehend a lower and lower marginal cost per unit but once that cost reaches the zero limit, it seems that the formulas that our current economy depend on become undefined.
Technology doesn't invalidate the rights of owners/creators, it forces us to completely reevaluate what ownership means. How to "pay" the author might not even be a meaningful question in the economy that results.
We are fortunate that we get a long trial run on things as frivolous as music and moving picture stories before rep/raps bulldoze us on their way through to Star Trek replicators.
Agreed, technology has some interesting effects of the notion of ownership: consider sampling and wikipedia to name but two. It affects the economic argument much more than the moral one; technology doesn't so much invalidate the concept of ownership as make certain modes of ownership uninteresting.
edit: spelling
Agreed, technology has some interesting effects of the notion of ownership: consider sampling and wikipedia to name but two. It affects the economic argument much more than the moral one; technology doesn't so much invalidate the concept of ownership as make certain modes of ownership uninteresting.
If you dug a hole in front of my house's front door and then demanded to be paid for it that would be unethical. It is true I would not pay you, but it is not because I had not requested you to do that "work" for me. Instead, I would not pay you because you (1) trespassed, (2) damaged my property, (3) caused blockage to my front door, and (4) are now essentially blackmailing into paying you to undo the damage you have done -- ALL of which was against my wishes. Therefore, I would refuse for reasons which are very similar to why I think Jason was right and Eleanor was wrong.
You know those bands that make their money from touring that are always put forward as the future? Their mp3s compete for mindshare with pirated Lady Gaga stuff.
Maybe if we all obeyed copyright then Elanor would have looked around for some other composer who gives their stuff away for free. Win-win. Composers who want money get money, composers who want fame get it instead.
The biggest competitor to Gimp is pirated Photoshop.
Etc.
Some of us are just convinced that it's good money, but some of us can't help but trying to tell people about the truth while being happy that they don't believe it. It's a weird situation.
I thought the weakest part was his attempt to make it a clear-cut case of right and wrong, and then go on to give some very muddy examples that really haven't been clearly decided: "I then ripped that CD on to my hard drive so I can listen to it on my iPod in my car. Well, that's not FAIR, right? I should have to buy two copies? No. There is in fact a part of the copyright law that allows exactly this; it's called the doctrine of fair use."
Logical, I'd agree, but he might want to discuss this with the RIAA, who argue that it's not fair-use, and merely an example of their forbearance not to sue for such petty infringement: 'there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns...' (http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=pira...)
But his moral argument seems almost reasonable: I created this music, so I get to control who uses it. He trades fair-use under copyright for exclusive rights to distribution. Inevitability aside, 'hostile young men' of HN, what's the flaw with this reasoning? Does one need to resort to the fairly weak position that 'sharing' with strangers falls under fair-use, or is there something stronger that can be said?
Did you miss out on the point that making music is how that guy makes a living? And part of that making a living is from the sale of his music, in all it's forms? If he chose to give something away for free, that would be a different matter. But that wasn't the case here. She was really arrogant and showed an unbelievable sense of entitlement and the "perpetrator is victim" mentality. Dude, you think his argument is "almost reasonable"?!?!?! Who made that music?
I also love how she sounds like this modern suburban American teenager with Internet access and she's studying theatre of all things, and yet cannot afford $4 to buy sheet music?! Probably needs it to buy a cool case for her iPhone, or buy the latest clothing fashion, etc. Here's the sound of the world's smallest violin playing a sad song just for her...
Be cautious with your generalizations about 'modern suburban American teenagers' and her spending habits. Having spent my youth working minimum wage jobs, one of my largest regrets is not being able to afford buy more and better books. I was able to take advantage of public libraries and university libraries, which remain one of my favorite features of American society. But I'll forgive Eleanor a lot for trying to follow her passion.
I hope she makes it huge and goes into films. I'll send her an email asking for a copy of each of her movies for free so I can post them on torrent.
"Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the theory implied by you,
Mr. Weems, when you claimed damage to your client. There has grown up in the
minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or
corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the
government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit
in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public
interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law.
Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask
that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private
benefit. That is all"
- from "Life-Line" by Robert Heinlein (1938)Begging better reflects position in which technology puts artists today. It is same situation that was throughout all history but last hundred years. You quickly get used to good things so now people think that they are morally entitled to being paid for what they created. As a programmer who had bad experiences with salespeople it's hard for me to say this but creating stuff does not bring money, selling does, and selling became much harder if the only thing you know how to sell is service of providing copy of some (your) work and value of such service to your potential consumer thanks to recent developments dropped to zero.
If every teenage girl was this expressive and self-assertive, I personally would feel better about the world.
cough I now return you to your "Illegal downloading bad, m'kay?" programming
She's not your usual girl, it seems to me - how many collect and use sheet music? Just following her musical/theatrical passion that far is unusual enough, and I was a little impressed that she understood copyright law enough to think she was getting around it by emailing stuff off-site. (She's wrong, of course; contributory infringement could be used to nail her.)
cough she mistook "defiantly" for "definitely".
Further tl;dr - the comment section by and large are all pats on the back to the writer. Few worthy of reading, but not many.
While I certainly see the perspective of the author here, wanting to preserve the integrity of his work, invariably he faces the same crisis the mainstream music industry faces: refusal to accept the change in mentality about content distribution and consumption, and an ardent unwillingness to entertain the idea that maybe in order to attract new audiences you have to tickle their senses and find out what they want, and how to give it to them. "Build it and they will come", thing.
He is already selling artists sheet music that they absolutely need for their profession via instant download for the cost of a coffee and the teenager in question still believes it is her right to misappropriate a copy instead because she doesn't want to pay.
The author isn't trying to preserve his work's integrity, whatever that is, he is trying to preserve his income.
He is a song writer. He genre is not a big recording industry item, mechanical royalties will be minimal. There are no concert tee shirts ,to assuage anyone's guilt here.
(Ironically, he brings up fair use as an excuse for his copying of media, but won't recognize that copying sheet music for a high school project probably falls under the same umbrella.)
I think you have to prove that the sales are lost, if you're making the case that someone is being harmed by piracy. Based on my experience with a ton of friends stealing media left and right, piracy seems somewhat orthogonal to sales. Folks seem to mostly steal things that are either very hard to get otherwise (old, out-of-print, not yet released) or that they would never be willing to pay for. A lot of pirates end up amassing a tremendous amount of media, more than they could ever afford if they were to buy it all. Often they spend a lot of money buying what they can afford.
To complete this rehashed discussion with a repetitive anecdote, I can say with total certainty that I have spent literally thousands of dollars more on music than I would have ever spent if I did not steal any. Like the girl in the article, I was a teenager with no capacity to pay for music for years as I discovered and stole from all the artists from whom I have been buying since.
I am an author, I tend to believe that I should be able to get paid for doing that work (and it is work, Eleanor, it's really hard work)...You think you're entitled to deny all of those people their rightful share of the work they do. I don't understand why you think that.
That's the core of his argument. He thinks that since he has been making a living this way for a long time, and it has worked out all right for everyone, his way is the right way and anything else is of dubious morals, because why would you want to deprive a good man of good work?
The discussion seems to be about whether the girl has a "right" to download or share his sheet music. In my opinion, she can do it, and that's that; should he have a "right" to stop her? He has not convinced me that there's any reason he should have that right.
OK, suppose your girlfriend agrees to have you take some rather private photos of her under the condition that you will never make these available to someone else. (Or the other way 'round if you're a girl) One day you break up and you're sharing these photos. Does she has the right to stop you distributing them?
According to your logic, she has not. After all, you're just sharing among friends. And it's not as if she's loosing income of something like that.
Following the authors logic, your girlfriend has the right to stop you distributing them. For you made a promise before she agreed -- you basically entered a contract.
His point is that he offered copies of his work under certain conditions (called copyright). In other words, he expected everybody who agreed to the contract not to copy and redistribute his work. He expects them to hold their promise, their site of the contract.
Nobody's is forced or required to enter the contract and make this promise. You're free to make your own music and share it. Or used someone's music who doesn't expect you to make a similar promise.
However, violating your promise (ie. changing the conditions of the contract) is clearly immoral.
Or would you want to be the victim of somebody who changes the contract conditions after the deal was made? Or would you want to be lied to, or have your friends break their promises?
If the answer is 'No', then copying stuff without a license is clearly immoral.
I certainly can brutally kill puppies. Do you have the right to stop me if I own them?
Stop trying to twist the argument. There's a helluva lot of things you can do, but whether somebody else has the right to intervene and stop you is irrelevant.
I don't see a lot of justification for claiming that piracy is wrong or bad. It's directly helping someone and not directly hurting anyone, and I haven't even seen someone claim credibly that it's hurting artists' pocketbooks. Certainly this girl's actions were a totally victimless crime.
I certainly don't see evidence that piracy is resulting in a lower quality of art, and it's obviously great in the short-term for consumers (especially ones like teenagers who have a hard time buying music and movies and books.)
It's pretty clear that she had already tried to convince her parents about this, but failed. Teens can use cash to buy whatever they want, but not online.
She may be rationalizing her actions, but from my ethical perspective as a libertarian, she's actually in the right. She didn't stole anything, nor did she agree to a explicit contract with the author. The author don't actually have the right to any profits, only profits that he endeavorer and successfully earn in the market.
But that doesn't matter much to me, anyway. As long as people like him don't lay their hand on the results of my intellectual labor, I don't care about what happens to the pirates and the copyright mafia.
I will be very happy to eat the lunch of other game developers at the end of this silly cultural war.
The author’s sales of sheet music to everyone who buys it include an explicit contract (called the laws of whatever country the sale is done in). The girl seems to have gotten a copy from some party to that contract, explicitly against its terms, and is now re-trading the item in question (the sheet music file), on her own. Except the law, as written, quite clearly applies just as much to her as it does to the person who violated his contract with the author in providing her the sheet music.
The nature of the stuff being traded makes it somewhat different than physical goods, but in principle this is no different any other illegal redistribution of goods, for example reprinting cheap copies of some copyrighted book and selling them on the street at barely above cost.
When you talk about your “ethical perspective as a libertarian”, what you apparently mean is that you don’t believe in the concept of copyright (or other “intellectual property”, or perhaps even that society’s laws should be binding on citizens). This is not the usual libertarian “ethical perspective”, and you should be careful about implying that libertarians necessarily feel the same way you do.
> successfully earn in the market
There is only a market for sheet music insofar as that sheet music can’t be trivially gotten for free from a third party. Basically, your comment says something like “we should eliminate the market for sheet music, and the author should do something else.” Well okay, that might be what happens anyway, but that’s not “the market” deciding. For markets to exist requires a set of social structures which regulate its form and function. When those structures break down, as in this case, the market is destroyed.
(These social constraints need not be written down or enforced by an official police force, etc. They just need to be commonly agreed upon and have some social weight. I need to know you won’t take my money and run without giving me the promised chicken, or spend all your time copying the book I sold you and selling it behind my back while I’m trying to write the next one.)
Rational libertarians do not believe in copyright law - all of the defenses of variations on copyright that I have seen from "libertarians" are from people who make a living from writing, and are too lazy or stupid to find some other way to make money. That is one reason I quit buying or reading Reason, the magazine for market-worshiping libertinist sub-competents.
Nice to know that you have the insight of what's a legitimate way to make money and what isn't.
BTW, bicycles are often pretty easy to steal. Are bike makers "too lazy or stupid" to find another way of making money? Or should we just find a better way of protecting our bikes?
However, most libertarians, with their understanding of economics, would laugh at such schemes. We wouldn't think that these kind of business models would be successful.
You are living under a rock. My ethical perspective is not uncommon amongst libertarians. However, it was new and it took for a while for libertarians to accept the arguments.(At least a decade) Right now, some of the major organizations in libertarianism are already using creative common attribution license.
"people like him"
ok, I can't take this Bizarro World discussion anymore.
You are clearly someone who has never not had a credit card. These things are almost impossible without one, and certainly not as easy as getting a coffee. And news flash, lots of student and poor people DO NOT HAVE A CREDIT CARD!
And even if you do, you go to some dodgy website that you have never heard of before and just enter in your credit card details? Well, I don't.
Would you like the remains of your shattered argument in a bag or may I dispose of them for you?[2]
[1] And pregnancy tests. Who impulse buys a pregnancy test?
[2] Ok, that was uncalled for, but its hot and I'm not feeling civil right now, and you started it with the all caps.
They do sound like a solution to my problem, and I will investigate if they have them here in Australia.
If you have the right form of currency, it's EASIER. You don't have to go to the corner store.
> You are clearly someone who has never not had a credit card
Are you kidding me? I didn't have a credit card until I was 20. How did I get by, how did I survive? Any checking account nowadays has the option of a debit card, which works just as well. Any bank account at all can be accessed by Paypal, and bank accounts are not nearly as exclusive- I opened my own savings account when I was 12. Friends, parents, friends' parents... Someone you know has a credit card, and you can pay them back.
Besides, just because you don't posses the means to pay for something doesn't mean you can take it. If I go into a corner store with only Yen in my pocket, I can't very well pay for a magazine even though I have the money. Does that justify me to steal it? Not a chance.
P.S. it's actually easier to get a cc if you are a student...
Some artists have a "live" performance that people enjoy paying for that un-copyable experience. But do we really want our authors to make their entire living from tips at book-signings?
Copyright hasn't caught up to the reality of unlimited instant effortless copying, but artists still need to eat, and paying them for what they do is probably going to remain the simplest way to make sure they eat at all.
If that what it meant to be, than it will be. Copyright will merely submerge the will of individuals into the underground illegal music scene and not solve any problems for musicians at all.
They can keep busting pirate networks all they want, it won't change a thing in the long run. Musicians will die off and soon we will be left with a frozen archive of musics, though a very large library.
It doesn't matter that much to me anyway. I'll never be able to get all the favorite songs in the world. I'll never be able to remember enough in my lifetime. I am pretty content with this scenarios.
I don't think what artists fear will come true. Instead, many of them will probably find ways to make a living.
For me, it's the same cognitively. There are still tons of artists and songs to discover, too much for a lifetime, and too much for the limited memory capacity of my brain.
A different music scene, but not necessarily a worse one.
The problem is that the content distributors still have not yet grasped the idea that 'scarcity' is moot in an age where information can easily be produced, reproduced, and disseminated at the speed of thought. Actually, they have grasped it, they just have not extracted a method of controlling it outside of the realms of pay walls, destroying UX by forced advertisement campaigns, and the walled-garden that is the iTunes Music Store.
"Do we care enough about creative works to support their creation?"
I have ticket stubs from twelve Dave Matthews Band concerts that say yes, in my case.
In some ways the medieval and renaissance periods had a more valid model with patronage for the arts. That limited the market to a much smaller pool of career artists though. I wonder what will replace the current state of affairs since a lot of signs point to it being unsustainable. And I do enjoy the results of having a larger pool of artists.
Some people, like me, just don't feel like we have anything to lose, but we also accept the fact that somebody might make a million bucks off my work and be totally fine with it.
In fact, I mostly evolved a sort of indifference as I diverge from the BSD and GPL hardliner positions to "hey, let just share!"
I live most of my formative years immersed in open source software. It just feel icky not to give anything back for so much of the free education that they enabled and provided for me in addition to all the great tools that I have the privilege to use.
The author obviously come from a very different culture, a culture that doesn't automatically share its capitals and works, that of which is clearly alien to me, if not to hackers in general.
For me, money and sharing isn't something that belong to the exclusively of one side or another, like charity and jobs. Money and sharing isn't in conflict at all. In fact, I like to think more sharing lead to more cash.
It's a clash of cultures really, but it doesn't mean each culture is equally good, just with a different perspective. What's really happening is a conquest and battle of ideologies, heart and minds, and which make more money. If one culture is clearly better than the other at this, then they are truly the superior culture.
Yes, and some people make their artistic works available via Creative Commons or public domain. But others enforce their copyrights, just like some software authors provide their works under the GPL. The BSD license or a "clash of cultures" isn't an excuse to ignore the GPL.
Also, technically Jason's reason for contacting her originally was not to accuse her of taking a free copy for herself. It was to ask her to stop making it free for others. Because strictly speaking, if she only took a single free copy for herself, and if the only alternative to that if a free copy was not available was that she would have to buy -- and if she literally could not afford it or would not buy it -- then yes in that circumstance she could argue reasonably that she did not deny him revenue. But that's not the argument. The argument is that she's making free copies further available to others, some of whom would have otherwise bought copies. Whether there is or is not a stimulative effect leading to more copies bought from him is not for her to reason about it -- it's literally none of her business, and not her right to decide -- only his. He created that frickin music. Let him decide, and honor his wishes. Not much to ask, really.
Eleanor: Why? Why should I care about that? They weren't using that stuff anyway. Not that I'm admitting to that. Because I'm not.
...
Mother: Please don't sneak into our neighbor's home when they're gone. Even if you don't take anything, and even if the back door is unlocked. It's not nice.
Eleanor: Why mom? I just want to have fun. Why is everybody always picking on me?
...
Mother: Please don't throw bubble-gum on the sidewalk dear.
Eleanor: I was done with it. Why do you keep pestering me. (pouts)
Mother: Because dear, people walking by may not see it and step on it, getting on their shoes. It's very hard to get off, and kinda gross.
Eleanor: So? Why should I care about that? Why should I care about any of the things you mention?
Mother: sighs Somebody I hope you'll understand dear. I really do.
banks can be broken into
neighbors cars can be broken into and their stuff stolen from the seat
...ad infinitum...
This is not the basis under which they should be compared. The correct comparison proceeds by thinking about which of the two actions is ethically justifiable.
You might as well have said "You want to break the speed limit to get your pregnant wife to hospital. So be it, but don't get pissed at me when I break the speed limit to get to the sports game."
No, I've compared people offering products under a set of conditions and then people breaking those conditions to use those products. JB offered his products under the conditions that people pay him for the privilege and GPL authors offer their products under the condition that people abide by the GPL. Why do we get to ignore JB's conditions and yet have to abide by the GPL?
The point is you haven't taken in to account the relative validity of the conditions. You can't equate them simply because they are "conditions".
The conditions of the GPL are (put very simply) "you must share". The conditions of JB's work are (put very simply) "you must not share".
You don't get to compare instances of infringing each of those rules unless you can demonstrate that a requirement to share has equivalent ethical validity to a requirement not to share.
If you're going to say "If you do X don't be pissed if I do Y" then the onus is on you to show that X and Y are equivalent.
You assume these have no equivalent ethical validity. But you fail to provide a rationale for your assumption. So, why should anyone accept your premise?
In fact, both are equally valid: If you expect others to keep their promise to share something, you should keep your promise to share something, too. If you expect others to keep their promise NOT to share something, you should keep your promise NOT to share something, too.
Both are derived from the Golden Rule and are thus equally valid.
Consequently, if you feel entitled to break your promise NOT to share something, why should anyone else respect their promise to share something?
I have also heard from a continuing stream of extraordinarily hostile young men (always men) who insist on "educating" me on the ins and outs of cybermorality, the definition of "stealing," and why I deserve to choke on my own obsolescence.
What he interpret as hostility is a bunch of young men who can't help but try tell you the truth as they see it.
It's about watching people oblivious to the fact of life getting chop to bits by pirates and free markets because they refuse to recognize something crucial.
And when they can't help you, they will buy other people stuff just to spite you. If they're in the same business, they will manically laugh at you. Then they will try to help you, knowing that you will just dismiss them like last time.
Admittedly, they describe me. I am one of those young men who would do this on and off. I wanna crush them, and then tell them the good news.
And they (you?) are not doing very well at "educating" us. Mostly it verges from amusingly incoherent to downright disturbing :)
I've had my fair share of attacks from them over the years. And they (you?) are not doing very well at "educating" +us. Mostly it verges from amusingly incoherent to downright disturbing :)
You can call these people "amusingly incoherent" to "downright disturbing" if you want. It doesn't mean anything about the truth that these people try to explain to you, with everything and anything they have.
Every single examples, and every business models big, small, and in between, they will throw out at you. Every single moral, ethical, and economic arguments they employ in their arsenal, thrown out at you. Every single historical evidences, they will dig up.
Meanwhile, musicians and record labels and criticize and rationalize away anything and everything. They rather not give out anything and earn a million dollars in return.
What these people have for you, is good news. It's very frustrating to see people not take it. These young men might have been your biggest fans, fellow musicians and artists, successful entrepreneurs or just a person well versed in economics dealing with non-scarcity.
If they represent the truth I feel very worried for our future :(
Taking a random recent (verbatim) example I recieved:
fuk u and ur fucking fancy words why do u hav the right to tell me what I cant do fuk u
edit: for context it was after I posted this -> http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2010/06/that-piracy-thing-again...
I suspect (from your last post) that we are talking about two vastly different sort of people :) certainly I don't see you sending that sort of message (I could be wrong, if you do - please stop it's boring)
These people don't really have good news; they, for the most part, don't have a new business model to offer. Mostly they just have insults and a "god given" right to whatever they want (almost on a level with "music co.s" god given right to demand money).
I find both sides puerile, inconsistent and useless.
On the other hand for the rest of us there are new revenue models that are slowly gaining popularity. When we can distract the media corps from replying to obnoxious emails and pursuing frivolous lawsuits it will probably all start to fall into place
But there is no god given right for anyone to expect something of mine, yours or anyone else's for free. No matter how much or how eloquently it is argued :)
1) To be fair, real scores are hard to find. Most of the published stuff is simplified, has parts removed, or is otherwise substantively altered from what is actually performed by professionals (code for this: "Vocal selections from..." "Adapted from..." etc.) I can't speak to this particularly to JRB, who may very well publish real scores, but there is a perception in the industry that in general the good stuff is unavailable.
2) There is no iTunes for sheet music. If you click through his links, get ready to install ActiveX DRMey plugins to preview the music. On mac? Too bad. So there's no way to confirm, i.e., that this is the "real stuff" as opposed to simplified sheet music.
3) If you study the industry in any detail, you'll discover that it's set up like a "Good ol' Boys" system. You can't get a part until you join the union, but you can't join the union until you get a part. New actors are placed on secret lists that are passed around to other directors either to promote or defame them. This may be totally valid and even necessary for Broadway to function--but it does breed resentment among those trying to "break in" to the system.
These three factors spell the perfect storm for piracy. There are multiple roadblocks to acquiring the music legally, and there's a huge resentment factor on the part of the consumers.
When you visit that site, the first thing you see in Chrome is a giant 'missing plugin' block and an invitation to download the 'Scorch' sheet music plugin, which it turns out is available for IE, Firefox or (on Macs) Safari. JOY.
Further down, you get the following message: "We advise you to check your printer setup now before you buy. You will only get one chance to print your music after you have purchased it. If you have difficulty printing, please see our print problems help page."
WTF? OK...let's have a look at the print problems help page:
"=== It says Printing To File Not Allowed ===
"Copyright law prohibits us from allowing customers to store image files of the scores on their computers. Therefore, when you buy from us, we only allow printing to paper."
No. Seriously?
The takeaway for me: not only do these people not get filesharing, they don't get computers and their attitude to those who do is one of xenophobia.
How about the printed copy that's now unusable (because it's, you know, paper, and paper has a habit of getting crumpled or ripped or wet or binned...)
Even iTunes doesn't make me pay for an mp3 again if my HDD dies...
Hell, if his site wasn't so miserable I would just pay the $4 or whatever for her (i.e. I would but it doesn't look like there is a way for me to pay it for her). Sheesh.
For the rest of everybody else who actually have some common sense about business, this is a dream come true. It's market inefficiencies ripe for exploitation. Exploit it and don't let the illegal pirates take it away from you, especially when your competitors decide to stick his head into the sand and give you a free lunch. The more Jason Robert Brown type people, the better.
In my opinion, it is really very simple. I don't care so much about the nebulous question of whether it's right or wrong to infringe on IP, and all these other new questions that come about when you remove the physical aspect and introduce CTRL+C/CTRL+V. What matters to me, is that books and music and movies continue to exist.
That won't happen if we insist we deserve it all for free. Who the fuck will spend their life writing music or books or movies if we don't leave them a way to monetize it? Artists are rarely driven by greed (and if they are, disillusioned quickly) but in nearly every human being, the desire to NOT DIE usurps the desire to express yourself creatively, so artists will be forced to abandon their works to continue living.
That's a very narrow, brainwashed view. Many people will continue to spend their lives on it. Remember music has been around long before there were ways to "monetize" it.
Moreover please realize that your HipHop millionaire and Britney Spears are anomalies in first place. For every Britney Spears you'll find ten thousands of underdog musicians who stay (often barely) afloat not by having their videos on TRL, but by playing small gigs in front of people.
That kind of making a living with music is not going anywhere and will, in fact, greatly benefit when the "Great wall of EMI" (or Universal, or Sony, or what not..) comes down.
No halfway sane person will pursue music fulltime if he cannot earn a living off it. This is true and has been true throughout history. Where there previously was no revenue through the sale of recorded or sheet music, there was patronage. If the patronage system had not existed, do you really think Leopold Mozart would have devoted his efforts at training Wolfgang Amadeus from the age of 3 to pursue music, as opposed to a (fee-earning) trade or craft?
I don't deny that there will always be hobbyists. But the world will be a much poorer place, musically, if we don't allow music as a fulltime career.
> That kind of making a living with music is not going anywhere and will, in fact, greatly benefit when the "Great wall of EMI" (or Universal, or Sony, or what not..) comes down.
First, let me point out that I am one of the "underdog musicians" you speak of. You can see my band at http://www.thesignalsofficial.com, and you can hear my music at http://www.myspace.com/thesignalsproject . I'm not signed to a label, let alone a major label. I finance everything related to band out of my own pocket, and my girlfriend takes our band pictures. However, I will quit my efforts making music, at least with a band, if I don't manage to get some kind revenue off of it. To not do so would be idiotic.
Second, it appears to me that you, as many others in the Hacker News community, are imbued with an inflated sense of romanticism of the small gig as opposed to financing via recorded music or proxies thereof. I understand that there is something intimate, raw, and beautiful in witnessing a musician play one of those shows, and I can assure that as I musician, those kind of gigs are really fun to play. But what's so wrong about putting vast hours of work into lovingly recording a record, so that anyone (who pays for it) can have the benefit of enjoying well composed, arranged, produced, mixed, and mastered music from, say, his car? Why should that be valued at zero, even if the product can be copied at virtually zero cost? Why do you see it as obvious that one should pay for small gigs (and, by the way, in many cases one doesn't pay for small gigs, the best the musician has to hope for is to make a cut of the bar draw), and yet not for recorded music? Scarcity, I presume you'll say. But that argument doesn't really hold water. Consider a music festival: my ability to enjoy the music at the festival doesn't (unless massive amounts of people are involved) deprive another person of the ability to enjoy the music. So by the scarcity argument, it should be morally ok to just jump over the fence without paying. (You wouldn't have paid for the gig otherwise, right? So no harm done.) But, of course, if everyone were to do that, the musician wouldn't be left with any money to get paid with. Nobody argues that bouncers, the "authority" that forces you to pay, are repressive, anti free-speech and authoritarian. And yet if they weren't there, do you really think people would pay to see gigs? And the functional equivalent of the bouncer in the digital domain is copyright law and enforcement thereof.
I'd like to make this last point more explicit. One method that is very effective in determining whether an argument boils down to sophistry is reductio ad absurdum. In the context filesharing, it goes like this: if filesharing is a good thing, then surely more of it is an even better thing. And the limit of that process is that all music is obtained through filesharing, and in this situation, no musician will ever obtain money from recorded music. Fine, you say: make money through other means -- play gigs! But if the same free-for-all mentality you seem to espouse is valid in the digital domain, why not in the physical? Why not loudly demand an end to bouncers at clubs? After all, as I've pointed out, if it is an injustice to limit the digital distribution of music, then surely it is equally an injustice to limit physical presence at a gig by the imposition of entry fee. And if the end-the-bouncer-movement ever did manage to get political traction, then there can be no doubt that no one would pay for gigs either.
No halfway sane person will pursue music fulltime if he cannot earn a living off it.
Who said musicians are necessarily sane people? ;-)
I don't deny that there will always be hobbyists. But the world will be a much poorer place, musically, if we don't allow music as a fulltime career.
This is a strange choice of words. Music has never been a "career"-choice that your parents would be happy with. The prerequisite to becoming successful with music is talent. Not even necessarily musical talent (although that obviously helps), but at least a talent in entertaining people with whatever kind of noise you're able to make. And ofcourse luck, lots of it.
The only regular "careers" in music would be in auxiliary branches (studio technician and such) or - given the basic talent - the job of a concert musician.
Some of that might go away if all music was set to be free. But complaining about that is about as productive as complaining about low-wage jobs moving to china. It's just the way things currently develop; adapt or die.
However, those who are driven by music will always find a way to do it. And I don't even think it will be harder than today. Au contraire I think it will become much easier for independent artists to gain traction, due to the great equalizer: YouTube. Sheer talent might actually finally regain the relevance that it deserves once we take the music execs and their marketing campaigns out of the equation.
However, I will quit my efforts making music, at least with a band, if I don't manage to get some kind revenue off of it. To not do so would be idiotic.
Sorry if that sounds harsh, but if your goal in making music is the money then I don't think it will be a great loss. There are plenty dedicated "idiots" to fill the gap, no harm done.
Fine, you say: make money through other means -- play gigs!
Actually what I'm saying is: There is no god-given right to make money with music.
If society values music enough to make people rich for it then new ways to make that happen will evolve.
Crying after an old model that has long expired is just pointless. You know, I'd much prefer to ride a horse to work. It just has so much more style than those soul-less vehicles everyone is using today. But no matter how hard I stomp my feet, I have to acknowledge it's 2010 and my poor horse would be overrun by a SUV in short order.
I think the real flaw in the current state of affairs is the lack of an easy way to donate. Build that, and say "my work is free, just please be nice if you like it", and interesting things may happen.
Heck, people are more likely to donate when you give them your work for free, than buy your work at all. Provided that taking and donating is as simple as buying of course.
If there was an dead-easy, reasonably secure way to donate 1$ to the authors of a work I am currently enjoying, I may click on that button.
If a person wasn't willing to pay $0.99 to download a song on iTunes what makes you think that person would be willing to donate a dollar?
Experiments have shown that when you give $2 to someone, then ask them a favour, they are more likely to do you that favour than if you ask them the favour in exchange from those $2. I don't have the specific sources, but I suspect they will be easy to find.
I believe this could be extended to spreading of abundant goods. Now, we basically have the choice between buying the thing, or downloading it from the internet for free. The problem, is, downloading is often more convenient than get up, go to the damned store, and buy a copy. It can even more convenient than buying it on-line, because when it's gratis, you have to fetch your credit card.
Now imagine you made your work available for free, and would like people to send you a few bucks in return, please. Assuming we could transfer the results of that experiment above to this problem, it may be more efficient than selling your work.
Of course, there are obstacles for that transfer to happen. First, donating is inconvenient most of the time. Second, you can't ask the favour face to face, as it was done in the experiments. I think both obstacles can be mitigated, but I don't know if that will be enough.
The old models are dying. So either we search for an alternative, or we let music die, or we sacrifice freedom of speech and privacy on the internet. Our choice.
Now, I have presented one alternative. It may not work. It certainly won't work for everyone. Luckily, there are others. I say let's keep searching.
This can't be that difficult with gigs, but even if you couldn't do that, why not go look for a patron or two? Or even a thousand?
Surely you aren't a great musician if you can't get at least a thousand people who like you - or even ten thousand. Ten thousand fans (out of say 400 million Americans and Europeans who use the internet) means that they just have to buy $20 worth of merc a year (assuming half goes to cover the cost of selling the product).
So will we see less art in the future? Absolutely not - we'll be seeing huge amounts more, and from people who may not have had access to, say, a recording studio in the past. The economics are changing on both ends of the "business," which I think is a net positive.
Writing a good book is a serious time commitment. If no one is putting in that time and effort then the quality will decline (it has already, sadly).
The ease of producing media is great and a mark of a better society. But making stuff easy does not make creating quality easy.
What we need is a way to compensate professional artists and performers in a world where the cost to distribute is effectively zero. Some stuff (for example a "Michael Moore"-style documentary on the oil spill) is complex enough that it is difficult to produce it without having a way to cover your costs. Does Cory Doctorow's way of doing this scale to movie production?
Oh, and we need camcorders and the like to integrate free codecs - the ones currently available by default often produce H.264-movies which need a license if you want to profit from your work in any way...
It may: http://www.ironsky.net/
While writing a good novel is difficult, writing a good novel without editing is incredibly so. Anyone can publish their work on the internet, but without a framework to pay for professional editing, it's mostly going to be a bit rubbish.
Musicians and artists can claim IP when their works are shared, but what about mathematicians, architects?
Do I owe Pythagoras' estate every time I compute A^2 + B^2 = C^2? I want to put French doors in my pantry, who do I make the check out to in order to legally use the design?
This man lives comfortably, I'm sure he's not living paycheck to paycheck. He deserves credit for creating the work, but the implication is that he's somehow suffering based on the 'trading'. Life sucks, I'd be pissed too but it's the way things work.
Grayson Chance was an internet sensation not too long ago for performing Lady Gaga's music. She didn't try to burn him for most likely stealing the sheet music, she applauded the kid and wished him luck.
Relevant, NSFW audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvq3Pf3j61c
This guy is a composer, lyricist, and arranger, not a "sheet music producer."
Plenty of software developers wouldn't give away their core assets for free or like them to be stolen, but many give away/open source byproducts of their work (libraries and documentation, say). Opening up byproducts is a good way to increase your exposure and increase the value of your core products.
On the other hand, he totally has the right to defend his intellectual property. I just think it's misguided in the short term to do so at this level.
"so artists will be forced to abandon their works to continue living."
Exactly how is this bad? What do music artists contribute other than catchy tunes to the grand sphere of what our nation defines?
And for that matter, have you seen the statistics of professional athletes who fall face first into the realm of poverty once they retire from their respective sports? It is shocking and frankly, a bit depressing. It's one of those things that invariably happens during the course of man that the lifestyles some of these people live are not going to last forever, and if they build their entire means of existence around "royalties" thinking they'll become the next Mick Jagger or Axl Rose floating comfortably on the sales of platinum albums decades after their last chart topping hit...
well...I don't even need to say it.
Personally I find life a lot less stressful when I don't get worked up about if people are getting "what they deserve" or not (especially since I don't have any right to decide what they deserve).
I'm not an arts person, so I will not present an argument about how art is good or bad for humanity. My point is:
1: I want music artists to stay about, because I like their catchy tunes.
2: Presumably, people who download their music do too, or they wouldn't care about it enough to want to listen in the first place.
Ok, so being a pro athlete is not a good long-term plan, but how about if they didn't make a dime when they were still playing? Can you see professional football continuing to exist if the only livable model was for players to work graveyards to support their addiction to oblong leather balls? Kids would still play, high schoolers would still play, but we would have no NFL.
P.S. You don't think music plays a role in defining a nation? Then why is it the 2 biggest cues a movie uses to clue you in on setting is dress and music?
Being a pro athlete per se isn't a necessary dumb idea. It's just that athletes don't have any financial skills because they rather devote their whole energy to sport.
Frankly, it's simply the matter of earning several million bucks and then living off the interest rates. It turns out surprisingly hard as you have to dodge snake oil salemen and the urge to spend all your money on lavish vacations and other money drainers.
Do you dislike the hundreds of thousands of existing tunes? Is it somehow not enough for you? Not even combined with the music people would produce even in the absence of IP?
What I mean is, copyrighted work is an abundant good. I just can't steal it from you. I can just make a copy. Is that bad? Why?
You can't even read the entire _catalog_ of the library of congress, because they add books faster than you can read them.
So what if no new books were created from now on? No new music, video, anything?
You still wouldn't run out of books, music, etc. Ever.
It is still an interesting read though; and I think they both come off well (less so the "obnoxious young men" :)).
Who is right though? It's a morally difficult question because this is not like, say, a big film producer or an indie game developer (representing the two main extremes). This is a girl who (supposedly) wants sheet music for her school production. On the other hand Jason arranges music exactly for those sorts of scenarios; and at what point do you say "this person is now deserving of having the music for free".
Thinking this through there is a fairly easy solution; Jason should offer his music through schools and other youth organisations for free (or free loan). Thus allowing teenagers such as this to put on their shows and practice their art. Then there will be no need for such people to trade the music.
Solution, no?
Hardly, in my opinion.
Just use the rather common approach of the Golden Rule: 'Treat others like you want to be treated'. If you want others to keep their promises to you, you should keep your promise to others. Likewise, if you want others to fulfill the contracts they agreed to, you should fulfill the contracts you agreed to.
The author offered a contract: "Pay 4 dollars and promise not to copy and redistribute the media, and I promise to give you a copy". Nobody who accepted this contract, has the moral right to violate it. Otherwise, everybody would have the right to violate contracts, in general.
Everything else is just a matter of organization: If teenagers need sheet music for school production, their parents should pay for it. Or the parents can create a club, hire somebody to write music, and share the resulting work.
I mean't in the larger sense.
"Would it be wrong for me to make a copy of some sheet music and give it to a close friend of mine for an audition? Of course not. In fact, it would be considered nasty of me to refuse. But to trade sheet music online is bad? "
Greedy, disgusting artist.
Huh?
The guy is a selfish and greedy person, trying to get these $4 out of this poor girl. Read the comment mentioning the creative common license potential usage, that's the right way to share to people and earn a decent living.
(He has reproduced her copyrighted e-mails, against her clear wishes. She should educate him back by slapping a DMCA notice on him.)
Where?
From the article -
JB: "I'll answer your question, but I'd like your permission to post the exchange on my website. Deal?"
Eleanor: "absolutely!"
From the update: "For those of you who were concerned, I did eventually hear from Eleanor. She said she didn't feel annoyed or offended that I had posted her remarks, she did understand where I was "coming from," and she appreciated that I took the time to deal with her."
I'm not seeing where she "clearly stipulated that he only had permission to reproduce some parts of her work."
JB: "I'd like your permission to post the exchange on my website. Deal?"
E: "absolutely! that would actually be kind of cool. but if you wouldn't mind changing my name in it to 'Eleanor.' I'm not sure why my iPod put it as 'Brenna' but that's not what I go by and I don't like that name."