In Defense of Piracy
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
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.
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.
In general I agree that music has far greater replay value. I think that's partially because it's something that can be enjoyed basically any time, anywhere. I can't think of the last time I worked in silence for more than a few minutes at a time. That being said, I do my best to "pay tribute" to quality media by purchasing it. I'm sure I own quite a few movies I haven't seen in years, but I bought them because they struck me as worth paying for.
Finally, I think at this stage piracy (well, quality piracy at least) is still something that Joe Public isn't savvy enough to pick up. By the time the people who pay to consume all the horrible media out there (like, 90% of the total), I would hope a sane and intelligent response to the piracy issue will have found its way to "Big Entertainment."
You watch Fight Club several times per week?! I can't understand the motivation, but hey, people are different!
I've seen Fight Club exactly once, in a theatre, but there are movies I've seen many times, and will watch again. One such movie is Leon ("The Professional"). In case you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour.. It has to be the director's cut though.
> Finally, I think at this stage piracy (well, quality piracy at least) is still something that Joe Public isn't savvy enough to pick up.
Maybe, but many Joe Publics are already downloading movies much like you and I, and at least see some of the good stuff in there while looking for Saw XVII.
They might download quality entertainment by accident. Of course, they might just as well stop watching it too, when quality fails to keep their attention.
Anyways, Transformers was legendary for me too, and the movie was enjoyable, with some of the coolest 3D ever. I feared Michael Bay would just totally ruin it.
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.
I'm not arguing that piracy should be legal, but that it should be just about as illegal as speeding.
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.
Holy crap, irony overload. Publishing this remixed adaptation required Lessig's publisher's permission.
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.
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?
Clearly we value this "remix culture" a lot less than we think we're supposed to.
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 ;-).
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? :)
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?
If you like, you can submit any band's site to Tipjoy right now, e.g. http://tipjoy.com/joy/90578/
Piracy = Marketing