A VC: Anatomy Of A Pirate
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To give you a practical example: I steal just about every TV series I watch, because being back in Europe, I can't use Hulu, can't grab them off iTunes, and generally TV stations delay broadcasting for about 1 season (probably to keep prices down). Grabbing them off of torrents is as simple as waiting for the episodes to show up on my "downloads-tv" folder, thanks to RSS and a torrent client. This usually happens about 20 minutes after the original broadcast in the east coast - I just have go about my life and wait for them to be ready to watch.
Back to the topic: these legal hurdles that force you to buy things locally will eventually go away (they're already gone for a few things). That's the one true problem here. Some people will always pirate, and some people will pirate because it's convenient. It's certainly easier than using proxies, faking an address somewhere and generally lying about you because you want to give someone money. This whole deal boggles the mind.
TL;DR: Some people pirate things because it's more convenient. Companies should make it more convenient to actually purchase music/tv/movies/games online.
Overseas networks should just accept that a small portion of the audience would buy it online before it is shown there, you could even subsidize them based on where the online content sales come from.
Some music/games/TV shows are never released in my (admittedly small) country and there is no legal avenue to purchase them over the web. So sometimes it's not just convenience (of course, the content owner is not losing a sale in that case so you could debate whether this is piracy). FWIW, I try to do the right thing wherever I can so studios would simply make more money if they lifted the restrictions
But I would argue that I am not pirating tv shows. I paid for them by watching the same product placement as my american counterparts.
Remember, with tv shows you are the product, not the tv show. Therefore they are essentially unstealable because every time you "steal" a tv show, you're adding one more product to the content owner's roster.
I'm not wholly against you on this; the current media market setup is patently flawed in the Internet age and I'm becoming increasingly convinced that so's the broadcast content model for anything but inherently live content such as sports and _maybe_ rolling news. But, that content is paid for by advertisers trying to reach prospective customers. Overseas viewers are, almost without exception, not prospective customers of the advertisers so they're not interested in paying to talk to you.
Funny thing, though, is that 90% of the product placement happening in US shows are things I can buy right here at home. Or I can buy some sister product the same umbrella corporation produces.
Furthermore, it is increasingly the case that product placement is happening for online products. I've especially noticed this with The Big Bang Theory (possibly because it's a geek show)
Hell, just take this for example: The only reason I went to the Cheesecake Factory on my US visit last year was because I saw it mentioned on a tv show I pirated.
Anyway, TRON: Legacy is showing here next week and the buzz is already gone due to the fact that most people that wanted to see it already have or read the plot. I'm just waiting for it to come out on bluray since the excitement of seeing it in theaters is largely gone.
People are seriously re-prioritizing their "needs". There's a prayer about having enough so you're not tempted to steal. It's supposed to be about food and daily necessities.
Apparently some people need music so much that it's worth stealing for. Can't you just move on with your life, and decide to not listen to that music?
Relevant discussion was "don't make me steal": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2176804
Sure, I suppose he could just move on with his life, but it's an album he really wanted and even offered to pay for it. Changes in how the record industry operates need to happen, not peoples priorities.
My only point: pirating is not a valid form of protest, because it is actually about you satisfying your wants.
"Pirating" music is as much an act of protest as it does satisfy. In fact, it doubles the enjoyment whilst filesharing is considered illegal, and triples it when you tell the world about it. It's practically free joy for the price of naught, and contributes to world peace.
How does the second follow from the first?
I'm reluctant to pay for music when I know that a large portion of the money is going towards the record industry, which essentially means that I'm contributing to efforts like ACTA, IPRED, attacks on net neutrality and the gradual shift to blaming the ISPs. To me this is far worse to society than anything allegedly caused by piracy.
Considering how little money the average artist get from record sales, I would rather protest the record companies by pirating the music and spending money directly on the artists through live venues and merchandise.
Now perhaps you could say that it's unethical because if he hadn't downloaded this album, he would've paid for someone else's, so he's not stealing from the creator of this album, but indirectly from the creators of other albums that he didn't buy instead. But that seems like an argument that proves too much; in that scenario, is it also unethical to listen to CC-licensed music, because doing so steals business from non-CC-licensed music?
Maybe they've done A/B testing on the way to release content to maximize their profit or some other good that they value and think that revealing the results to you would affect the outcome.
But if the work isn't being published (or isn't being published to a particular audience), then that side of the social contract isn't being upheld, so the purpose of copyright (to encourage such material to be produced and made available) isn't being fulfilled, and therefore I don't see copyright as ethically applicable (or ethically applicable to that audience).
I guess a shorter version of the obligation I feel users of a work have is: Compensate the creator, if they'll take your money.
If you and the musician are face-to-face and she says you can have an MP3 of her music for $1000, it's not right to take it if you think it's too expensive.
But I think the proper way to analyze ethical issues involving creative works is, therefore, to see who is upholding or violating the social contract that we call "copyright". I don't think there's any separate moral issue, and it certainly isn't a form of property (due to being non-rivalrous).
I and a musician are face-to-face, and she says I'm not allowed to listen to this particular waveform unless I hand her $1000. It's not right for her to claim monopoly over this non-rivalrous good because she feels like she owns it.
Anyway, is my understanding correct that if the artist was selling $1000 tokens to acquire her MP3 and you thought that was excessive, then you would take the token and leave whatever compensation you thought was appropriate?
She made an incorrect assumption. We don't work on the labor theory of value; things are only worth what you can sell them for.
> then you would take the token and leave whatever compensation you thought was appropriate?
It depends. I'd probably take the token and then get around to compensating her someday. If it was somebody I knew, I'd probably give it to them upfront, but if it was an unknown, I'd just end up buying a ticket to their next show and handing them some money at it. (Yes, I have done this before.)
If you think sharing digital music is "stealing", then I suggest you get familiar with the principle of abundance. The real crime is in drawing an analogy between peers who elect to share digital information, and pirates who kill and steal limited resources in transit from A to B.
The fact is, while the market includes a large number of P2P filesharers, many people will gladly pay for convenience and live concert tickets, and none of this is going to change. If you can't deal with this, you are in the wrong business. If you are a musician who feels robbed by the masses of torrent sharers, then I dare you to reveal your identity and speak up against filesharing and see how quickly you alienate your fans.
Understand that when you liken the free flow of information to "stealing", you are speaking a point of view that is quickly becoming extinct. The next generation born into the P2P era will think nothing of this, and find your prudish inclinations out of touch with reality.
From the point of view of the consumer, international price discrimination for digital goods also appears no more ethically justifiable than piracy.
At least with cricket they have given up on showing only half the play if the match was in your city. Attendances are as good as ever...
What a hurdle indeed.
I can't buy most of the stuff I'd like legally, even though I wouldn't mind paying for it (even if I do buy it from, say, Amazon US, it's still illegal !!!). (Edit, fredolivera beat me to it and has a better argument here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2192699 )
I'll lobby for a change in laws, but the music, movie and software* distribution industries need to change as well (* by software I mean big software like Microsoft, Oracle et al, which have pernicious software licensing agreements which vary by country, etc.).
But I wouldn't call them complete hypocrites. Globalization has made us desire stuff we then can't acquire - very often artificially, in the case of entertainment, by way of publicity, positive reviews like in this case, etc.
Hypocrite: "a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion. 2. : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings"
The author is rationalizing (as I often do as well), but I wouldn't say he's an hypocrite, unless he refuses to pay at the time when he has a legal avenue to do so. (BTW, I did read the article - I might have taken the wrong conclusions, but still)
Maybe it is available now. Maybe I'll search later and consider buying a copy if it is officially available as a DVD or via download in a good quality format. Though my interest has dropped off considerably in the intervening years.
On other occasions I've hit the "we can't show you this in your country" thing. My reaction has always been "fair enough, there is an Internet awash with other things I can watch and I have plenty of other things to distract myself with at home too". A couple of times the restricted item has been a film trailer/preview - those productions may have lost the chance to garner my interest in paying to see them when they are released over here.
This isn't quite the same problem as the linked article discusses - this was an older item that was effectively out-of-print rather than a new item that wasn't available in all territories. The entertainment industry does shoot itself in the foot quite often with staged roll-outs though - either because people who might buy if they could easily obtain the content by other means or because people have a chance to happen upon negative reviews that put them off or have a chance to be distracted by other things and forget about this particular thing. While it can be excused to a certain extent with physical mediums (manufacturing and distribution logistics could make a coordinated global release difficult to manage, and a risky undertaking if initial demand for the product is not easy to judge) it simply makes no sense with content that is being distributed digitally.
Oh, and on a point of pettyness... Hello Mr In The US And Can't Get Content That Is Available to UKians Waaa Waaa Waaa. Welcome to what the rest of the world often experiences!
The fact that the content is more expensive or harder to get is all the more reason to give up. This is not a moment of failure. It is a warning and a notice that hurdles have been set to prevent acquisition.
Where's the actual evidence? You'd have to actually find his IP address downloading something from somewhere.
I'm pretty sure that the evidence would be lost in the aether by now, but I'm no security expert...
It (used to be!) available to stream in full at http://hypem.com/#%21/artist/Destroyer. It's available to download at Amazon's US MP3 store for $5.99. It's not available to download from the UK MP3 store, and Amazon UK are charging £22 for a CD copy. That's 6 times the price!
I think I'll just torrent it and get it in lossless format, thanks very much.
Didn't know I'd left the Web.
Works very nicely BTW, I'd recommend it to anyone.
Plus the prices (and form factors) are awesome. $69 (Roku) for a plug and play box that can sit on the shelf with my other components.
But I guess the point here is: If I can hook a computer up to a TV, why do networks try and differentiate between 'computer,' 'tv,' and even 'tablet?'
In fairness, I don't use this machine just as a media player; it's also a file and print server for me, and where my backups run, so it being a full computer has other fringe benefits for me. That said, I'm still not sure I'd choose an Apple TV over it; I like the added functionality of it being a real, normal computer.
Seems like a decent startup idea if you can get the content contracts.
For example, if you look at the way Spotify operates, they negotiate rights and open up their service on a per country basis. A system like that might be more feasible for a startup.
Licensing content for a couple of EU countries might take less time and be cheaper than for the US.
As we say in our promo cards at http://gorankem.com , we want to help you find the songs you were always meant to hear. Not only is so much music not paid for at the moment, but so much great music is completely lost in the shuffle. If our crowdsourced resource can help others more easily find the hidden gems, that consumption pie will expand even further...and maybe, just maybe, the labels will start to realize what direction to take the variable pricing model (i.e. not $1.29...)
Steam is doing it. I pirate everything I see but since Steam I'd rather buy some games simply because they are then in my "Steam games list".
I would easily give up piracy on music if Spotify became legal here in Belgium, but it hasn't so I combine my LastFM subscription with rapidshare account.
Same for TV shows and Movies, I don't see the point in owning it, but I would pay for a Netflix account in a heartbeat.
A girl and I wanted to watch a movie on a spare evening. We had been talking a few days before about how we'd never seen Scott Pilgrim[1], and so we decided to actually go down to Blockbuster, because it'd be quaint. I was surprised it was still around...
Anyway, so we get there, and we wander around, looking for it. We didn't see it, but we did see that they had 35 new copies of some other release, which seemed kind of ridiculous. So we ended up asking the people who worked there, and they said that it came out on DVD the next day. So we just went home, and about 15 minutes later, we were watching it in full high def. "Well, we tried to do it the right way, and all it did was waste an hour." Silly rules about waiting on physical products meant that they missed out on my $2.
Last week, I was with some friends. I mentioned how I'd just seen the premier of Archer[2], and how I was surprised it was as good as Season 1. My friends hadn't seen it, but were interested. So I told them to bring up Netflix, because all of Season 1 was on it. So we looked... and now that Season 2 was on TV, Season 1 was back to 'DVD only.' Ten minutes later, the first episode was torrented, and by the time we'd finished watching episode 1, the entire rest of the season was done. I was specifically trying to get my friends hooked on their product, yet they wanted to make it harder for me to do so. It's so dumb.
99% of my media consumption is legal, because most of the time, I don't mind what I'm watching or listening to. But when I'm trying to find something specific, it always seems really hard to actually get, and there's also this[3]. But torrents have everything, and it's fast, and no-bullshit.
1: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446029/
2: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1486217/
3: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4085/5008519733_757bc53e18_z....
now an owner of a property decided to release the album in the UK on 4th of February, and in the US only on the CDs 10 days later.
what else is the evidence of having rights on the intangible property, if not a right to make such decisions?
i'm confused :)