Jonathan Coulton on MegaUpload and piracy
jonathancoulton.com
jonathancoulton.com
I ran into this a few months ago. I was bored and slightly drunk from brunch on a Saturday afternoon, and got it in my mind that I’d catch up on the final four Harry Potter movies. Whatever. That it was Harry Potter isn’t necessarily the point. Three of these films - Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Part 2 of Deathly Hollows - were available on Amazon video for rental. Score!
Of course, I didn’t realize Part 1 of the Deathly Hollows wasn’t available on Amazon when I started this drunken marathon. But you can believe after the first two, I was in the mood for more. And I wasn’t about to ruin the series by watching Part 2 before Part 1. I won’t say what route I took to watch it, but these were my legal options after scouring Netflix Streaming, Hulu+, Amazon OnDemand and iTunes:
* Wait two-to-three days for a DVD to arrive from Netflix
* Go to Blockbus..oh.
* Go to a DVD sto..oh. I mean, I suppose I could’ve taken the train 20 minutes to Best Buy at Union Square, bought the DVD of a film I was only going to watch once, take the train 20 minutes back home and … shit. I don’t have a DVD player anymore.
I won’t tell you the course of action I took. Only that the entire experience was exasperating, annoying, and thoroughly made me want to not watch the rest of Harry Potter. And I wanted to give them money.
I don’t get how this is hard to understand.
Just the other day my Macbook died; "green light of death", i.e. it's not charging and not turning on anymore (presumably the battery is dead).
On the harddrive of said Macbook I have ~$300 worth of purchased iTunes movies that I cannot access anymore. I had never bothered to back them up because I was under the naive assumption I could just re-download them when needed. A service that I took for granted not only because I do it with their apps and music all the time, but also because most of their movies were more expensive than the equivalent DVD.
Well, needless to say, apple does not allow to re-download purchased movies.
I may still be able to recover that harddrive. But I'm most certainly not buying movies from apple anymore.
I've been looking into other digital download options, but Amazon's not compatible on a Mac, and I enjoy watching movies in HD quality. I don't blame Apple for the restrictions that Hollywood puts on them, but I'm also not going to spend more effort than I need to to watch my movies. Downloading them is the most convenient way to watch, there are no ads, and the quality is amazing. I don't understand why this is so hard for the studios to get right.
What else is non-transferable? Books? Music? Apps? (Can iDevices do other things?)
Not that it makes any sense not to allow people to download stuff multiple times, especially when said stuff is DRM'd, but try reasoning with the movie studios.
It might get better in the future though. Music is now mostly DRM free and you can re-download directly from iTunes. That changed not that long ago. If the music industry can change there's hope for the movie industry as well.
But then again. It's 2012. Is it really such an outrageous assumption that I'd be able to re-download digital content that I paid dearly for?
Steam lets me re-download my games as often as I want. Amazon and all ebook vendors let me re-download my books. Google let's me re-download my android apps. Apple let's me re-download my apps and mp3s.
It just honestly never occurred to me that iTunes movies would be different. When I paid $16.99 for an iTunes movie while the same DVD would have costed $9.99 I was actually mentally justifying the markup with the convenience of not having to care about backups...
In the US, tends to err on the side of consumer protection, even in the face of a click-through license to the contrary. While Apple will let you re-download if you call (apparently), if I'd lost >$100 in iTunes movies and they wouldn't, I'd call AmEx and charge back the purchase. Or go to small claims, just for the novelty of winning against Apple.
However, I just pirate music, tv, and movies shamelessly (and buy Blu-Ray physical media, since I like 1080p, and rip). MPAA and RIAA declared war on everyone else about 15 years ago, so fuck them. The only reason I pay is for convenience.
Because the 'other side' doesn't understand why you think they have to make it easy for you to buy Harry Potter 7.1 and if they don't, why you think you get to circumvent their processes.
You wanted to give them money on your terms. They want you to give them money on their terms. I think that sums it up.
It is the responsibility of the producer to meet the terms of the consumer, or else go out of business.
---- ME:
It just dumbfounds me that, with card in hand they cant make this shit work. I had the same problem with microsoft and fallout3 extensions, after I went through microsofts increadibly evil market place for games thing, bought myself some credits (why can't I just use money guys) and downloaded the extensions, I had to jerry rig them to work with fallout3 because that version I downloaded with steam, and MS has a clause in their terms about versions of fallout downloaded from competing software devlivery systems.
In fact steam is the only on of these fucking things I have ever used that just works (in fact it works a bit too well its nearly as dangerous to my wallet as amazons one click)
Hint guys, If you cant make it like steam, or amazons one click, just pack up shop and go home, the more hoops I jump through, just to appease your circle jacking business people and "Information architects" the more likly I am to just pirate the software.
My Friend:
> > It just dumbfounds me that, with card in hand they cant make this shit work. I feel your pain.
But you're expecting it to work because you see it as a transaction, you buy it, they give it to you. They on the other hand are living in crazy bugfuck dying-media-company world (it's Sony), where it's actually an opportunity for you to STEAL FROM THEM. And so people who a) don't know how software works and b) aren't operating with a full deck to start with dictate how the process gets built. They add this and demand that in this big committee (all the more efficient because it's actually a tree of committees), and some poor schmoe programmer implements it the way he's told.
The real surprise is that they manage to sell /anything/.
Clearly not.
I won't tell you the course of action I took, but I really wanted an apple.
Obviously, totally their fault and its OK since they are a failing industry.
1. Apples are fungible; one apple is as good as the next one: unlike Harry Potter movies you can consume apples in any order.
2. Nobody holds the copyright on a particular apple. There are many companies growing apples.
3. You can grow apple trees in your own garden from seeds. If this takes too long, you can buy a tree.
4. You can not download an apple. 5. Eating destroys apples. 6. Apples can rot. etc...
This is an excellent point (and paragraph) - I wish more people understood this (although it is probably scary to many in the startup community).
This is a widely misunderstood thing. Almost no country bans prostitution per se, not even most US states. That would be a gross violation of economic freedom. Instead they ban activities perceived as harmful: soliciting and pimping.
So yes, it is.
I know this isn't strictly relevant, but I really believe that thanks to technology improvements, we need to work on dispelling the idea that everybody has to work. Unemployment should gradually stop being a horrible fate worthy of pity or derision, but rather a viable career path. One of these days...
Until we get self sufficient factory farms and power plants (so let us think futuristic here, say 50 years) where robots generate carbon through some means, pattern it into amino acids, and use 3d printing technology to generate plant and muscle matter that is most tasty and nutritious for us to eat, whenever we want. And simultaneously, your power is generated by robots controlling massive solar arrays surrounding the planet siphoning off the suns energy output to power the entire planet, and no human is involved there.
All that is there is an upfront cost. And after singularity, we don't even need to worry about developing the new technologies or knowing how to repair what is already there.
But who do you pay to get there? Who gets the right to say "everything you eat and everything you do is powered by my creation". That is another great question to ponder.
But we will never have a capitalist system where people can consume without producing and expect to be a viable economy. It is actually the reason America is failing so badly right now - as a nation, percentage wise, very few of us actually "produce" anything. Too many are middle men trying to leech off the system through a mirth of means (including myself, as a college student at this time I eat food and make nothing useful yet).
Just because your power plant employs some people--and it probably really is just a handful--does not mean everybody has to work. The same is true for agriculture; one farmer is already extremely effective, and with the advent of cheap robotics[1] they are poised to become more efficient yet.
[1]: Something like: http://www.harvestai.com/
"Whom to pay" is a loaded question--we have already reached, or are rapidly reaching, a point where society can exist happily without everybody pitching in. Why should anybody's saying their creation powers things actually matter?
Of course, my argument isn't really about getting rid of payment or even the capitalistic system. Rather, it is about extending a recent trend: the increasing minimum standard of living. In a perfect world, you would be able to subsist comfortably without working. Of course, there are plenty of other ways to motivate people: status, luxury items...etc.
So, given increases in efficiency and different sources of motivation, I do not see why a capitalist society with plenty of people not working is impossible. Now, I doubt transitioning there would be easy: too many people are emotionally set against freeloaders. If we actually needed everybody to work, this would be great; however, as technology progresses and this is needed less and less, it stops being great.
Of course, there is one glaring whole in my argument (or, at least, one I'm pointing out): we may not be at the requisite level of efficiency yet. However, if recent trends continue, I thin we will reach it some time soon even if we are not there yet. And when we do--and well after--the cultural aversion to "freeloading" will persist even though it is less and less needed. Which is unfortunate.
In fact, if the person was forced to work against their will and paid for it, that's still effectively slavery.
I'm not saying anything about pay. Of course if all work is voluntary, then the ability to only work for pay is implied.
I just posted a similar rant on my own website on the characterization of pirates that also refers to the Swiss study that Coulton brings up, plus another study commissioned by the Dutch government that reached very similar conclusions.
I agree with the latter, but I'm not sure how Coulton finds the latter consistent with the former. Perhaps he believes copyright should only apply to commercial violations, or should only require attribution, which would make since considering that his works are released under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. But does he believe other artists should be allowed to place their works under stricter licenses (i.e. ones that would allow them to sue a kid for downloading an MP3)?
For example is someone took something I wrote and published it under his own name, that would be fraud.
Or if someone used my song for the soundtrack of a porn without making it clear that I wasn't involved, I would argue defamation because they led the public to believe that I was involved in pornography.
However, since we don't live in an efficient market, we have these things that prevents anybody from creating things called the barrier to entry. This could be startup capital, facilities, or whatever that is needed to manufacture and distribute the items. This prevents anybody from just making a movie, since you would need all the equipment and crew to shoot it. Copyright basically guarantees a limited monopoly for the creators to give them a reduction in risk involved in creating the item.
But the bottom line is, copyright is not a good thing, and it is only as good as the barrier to entry is. With the barrier to entry for making creative media so much lower than what it was before (anybody can record an album using Garageband), the reduction of risk, in the form of copyright, might not justify the overall loss created by the deadweightloss. Essentially it is a comparison of deadweightloss vs opportunity cost of not having the idea ever created. And in the current time, because the opportunity cost is so small, copyright laws should adjust itself, which it hasn't.
"We are constantly demonstrating through our actions what we believe to be the norms for acquiring and consuming content. Right now a lot of us think that it’s OK to download stuff through illegal sites under certain circumstances, and a lot of us think it’s totally fine to use those things to make videos and put them on YouTube even though YouTube profits from it. That’s not ME saying that, that’s US saying that"
Piracy discussions often go towards the ethical. It makes sense to look at what the actual ethical norms are.
Looking back on art over the centuries I would not say that today's art is necessarily "better" because people are paid to create it.
Yet I've read statements by entertainment industry people that if we don't spend heaps of money on motion pictures, their quality will plummet to the likes of "reality TV".
Not only do I think this is complete rubbish -- it's not the budget that makes the quality of the film -- but all I can think rgarding the reality TV comment is, "Then why the heck are we bombarded with crappy reality TV?" The reasonable conslusion is because the stuff gets watched. So even if there was a drop in quality, it isn't going to affect their profits. People will still consume this stuff.
I find this point meaningless. For most of human history a lot of things happened - for example 1) Slavery was normal 2) People were ruled by monarchies 3) Countries were constantly fighting each other
More to the point, we simply lacked the mechanism for 'normal people' (ie not nobles) to pay a small percent of their disposable income for art. Instead church & rich people picked up the slack and employed artists.
I think the point here is not so much about Intellectual Property as such, but about modes of distribution. Writers have been selling books for a couple hundred years - and nobody is complaining. We are comfortable buying books. But for media content the model is just not there yet. But let's talk about that - instead of attacking IP as such.
Beautiful.
Anyway, people don't change overnight. Once you train people they can find pirated content for free, they'll continue doing this - and it's very hard to compete with a torrent search site.
I have seen examples of people attempting to "cash-in" on the SOPA outcry, but I do not believe Jonathan Coulton is one of those people.
I've seen a bank go bankrupt and people lose quite a bit of money. (no, not in the US, no FDIC, etc etc, private bank, other country). Imagine hitting the ATM on the way to work and finding out that the bank is simply gone. Okay, the US has good protections against that, as do most 1st world nations..... but the lesson coming out of that was "Hmm, maybe we should look at only using government sanctioned banks with, you know, insurance, and if it's going to be a private bank, I want to know more about their financial situation before committing to them. Lesson learned.
Security company for the condo complex got shut down because they broke immigration laws. Left the condo with no security, even though most of the staff were legal, it didn't matter. Those guys are out jobs, and the condo has to have an emergency meeting to figure out how to get back good, trustworthy guards again. Suppliers go bankrupt. Heck, people get sick, family emergencies, they die unexpectedly and unfortunately, leaving you with a problem.
So let's not blow it up into more than it is. If the lawmakers were way out of line here, let's make sure it comes out and they are sanctioned appropriately.... but regardless, it's a 3rd party service. If you're using any critical service that is devastating to be without, you need to properly assess and address that risk.... whether it's data or services, staff or insurance, etc.
Megaupload was also used for legal activities. Awesome. I bet the mafia also did some stuff that was legal. Let's consider the "complexity" this introduces into the act of putting mobsters in jail. Insightful.
Piracy is victimless. So is me breaking into your house while you're not home, watching TV for a while, and then leaving. I mean, you're not even using your TV while you're not home! I mean, if I break into your house and watch your TV, it's not like I would have paid to watch your TV if I hadn't broken into your house. I mean, you're not losing anything! How dare you prevent me from doing what I want with your shit.
What, just because you spend $100M making a movie, you think you "own" the right to charge for that movie?
The end.
I don't understand how you can say that. What is this "red herring" truly hiding? Jonathan Coulton has always been outspoken about piracy in this regard.
Your comparison of piracy to breaking and entering is really outlandish.