"When you copy the bits that comprise a movie or a song, you are not denying anybody else that copy of the movie or song." Terrible, terrible argument. Taken to an extreme, there should never be more than one paying customer for every piece of digital (or convertible to digital) content ever created. Hogwash.
It's easy to forget, but patronage was the primary form of funding for the arts for the vast majority of human history. Commercialized media outside of books and newspapers is probably only a hundred years old. There are many benefits to consumerization of art, but a single paying customer is clearly sufficient.
You must mean "civilization's history" (~6,000 years), not "human history" (~200,000 years).
Throughout the history of civilization, peasantry, serfdom, and outright slavery were the primary source of labor, and provided the wealth that the very small patron class spent on art for themselves. Artists under patronage didn't create what they wanted. They created what their patrons wanted. Some was great, to be sure, but the comparatively narrow range of human expression from this period stands in sharp contrast to the cultural explosion that took place when modern economies allowed artists to follow their muses well beyond the suffocating folds of the aristocracy, which was chiefly interested in creating markers of its own power and domination.
This is not to say that industrialization set creative genius entirely free. As a practical matter, publishers and producers became the patrons by financing the development and production of work in hopes of selling access on a larger market. The critical difference is that the personal tastes and interests of the publishers gave way to those of the far more diverse general public. Thus, the astonishing creative explosion which began in the 19th century, and characterizes the 20th century. By killing off these middlemen, you destroy a vital link in this infrastructure in that you loose the people with concentrated piles of cash who are willing to underwrite the very risky and unpredictable process of artistic creation, and who do so not for their own enjoyment and social elevation, but for the much wider (paid) enjoyment of the general public.
Since this modern system of commercial patronage appeared, it utterly eclipsed everything that came before, in terms of output. Royal patronage is hardly an option in a country like America. Patronage by the Church isn't what it used to be. Corporate patronage is better known as "advertising", and patronage by the 0.01% is also out of the question unless you're exceedingly well-connected socially. Kickstarter is a great idea, and a welcome contribution, but comparing the projects there with the range of completed work on Amazon, and I'll think you'll start to appreciate the limits.
People are justifiably disenchanted with publishers in light of their abusive practices. But it's worth remembering that the scale of the abuse was a direct reflection of the deeper value they provided. And duplication and distribution, as it turns out, was the least of it. Yes, that's where they recovered their money. But the real cultural value was in their power to commission, and their willingness to put more freedom and control in the hands of artists than anyone had ever granted in the past. When you talk about "going back" to old systems it sounds a lot like telling suburbanites that they need to "go back" to sharecropping. In many ways, this reflects the broader economic trend that's actually playing out, in which a few enormously wealthy people tower over increasingly impoverished masses while the middle class flat-lines before going into reverse.
To my mind, this isn't something to celebrate.
I said "sufficient", hardly a celebration.
it utterly eclipsed everything that came before, in terms of output
Making 1000 times as much art isn't 1000 times as valuable. There is limited time for it to be enjoyed, and limited cultural source for it to be based on, so greatly increased output results in a lot of work that no one cares about. It also finds some "diamonds in the rough", but it's mostly smoke and no fire.
it sounds a lot like telling suburbanites that they need to "go back" to sharecropping
I'm not sure what makes this topic so prone to analogy, but their use rarely helps the conversation. Here's the root of the problem: copyright is no longer enforceable. You can throw a tantrum, tell us all how unhappy we will be, sue six year olds for hundreds of thousands of dollars, make complicated software that pretends to manage your digital rights, but ultimately it will be of no use. The only thing that will be of use is finding a new business model that doesn't rely on copyright enforcement.
IOW, the answer to "why do we pirate" is "because we can with little risk of being caught". I would respect more piracy proponents if they just said so instead of trying to come up with moral rationalizations like "it's ok because you are not denying anybody else the copy".
[ http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_... ]
There is only one business model to find, which is this: Offer something people want. If they decide to take it without paying for it, fuck them up. And that's it. Everything else is charity.
Obviously, a well-run state divides this labor. A person stealing from a grocer doesn't usually get damaged by the grocer personally. The grocer just call the cops, who take care of all the nasty work involving guns and jails and heavy fines, etc. On a higher level, contracts get disputed in court, and people who default suffer a different range of penalties. But make no mistake. They suffer palpable harm. That's the whole point.
In the real world, among actual humans, the decision to buy is based on TWO factors: Do I want this? And must I pay? If the answers are yes and yes and the person has money, you've got business. But if they can simply take what they want for free, then a sizable percentage will. Not all, but enough to drive you out of business when word gets out. The whole reason we have laws courts and cops is to counter this. But somehow, only artists are expected to do business without being able to take their protection for granted.
Now you may be right in saying the copyright - as it stands - is no longer a viable means for inflicting the pain which backstops commerce of every kind. But what "finding a new business model" really means is finding a new vector for punishing those who'd destroy a business by taking instead of paying. And obviously, in a civilized country, punishment is the domain of the state, and they take a justifiably dim view of "private enforcement" (e.g. the Mafia).
That's why "finding a new business model" really isn't up to creators and creators alone. Under a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, It's up to the people to take some responsibility as well. And that means deciding what enforcement mechanisms that can live with, making sure they're funded properly, and accommodating them to the extent necessary to be suitably effective. What they don't do is say "Fuck you, you're on your own - figure it out or die," unless they're insanely short-sighted or they truly want the target of their rage to die.
That's a pretty base understanding of business. You are correct, but it assumes that anyone who knows this is okay with the way you operate. In general, people are okay with prosecuting those who have taken physical property of value, but when the girl scouts get sued for singing songs at the campfire, people aren't so sure.
And really, the last half century of copyright enforcement has looked a lot more like the mafia than the government. VHS had an angry looking FBI warning, while people were trading mix tapes with their friends. It has been "private" enforcement in an attempt to prop up the business model, with only tolerance from the rest of society.
What they don't do is say "Fuck you, you're on your own - figure it out or die," unless they're insanely short-sighted or they truly want the target of their rage to die.
I'm not sure that I care whether "Hollywood" lives or dies. They make some nice stories, but there are a lot of bigger issues in life. It is not a "target of [my] rage", so much as it is the good looking, arrogant bully that's popular but sometimes hurts people. I don't even care that they want too much compensation for their goods, which I pay though cinemas, iTunes music and video, and NetFlix.
What I care is that now that the natural means of enforcing copyright (limited means of production) is gone, they are arguing to turn our society into a surveillance state to ensure that they get their due. This is absolutely, positively, undeniably, not okay. Even if they succeed in doing this to the United States, other countries will go to war with us to prevent this from happening to them.
Find a business plan that works without copyright or admit defeat.
"You are correct, but it assumes that anyone who knows this is okay with the way you operate."
Bad news, Buttercup. We all operate like this - you included. I mean if you work for a company that's bigger than a breadbox, they're going to have a legal department, and this means that you, and everyone around you, enjoys livelihoods that are ultimately backstopped by the force of law. Not the "idea" of law. The force of law. The fact that your own hands aren't getting dirty doesn't mean that somewhere done the line from which your paycheck springs, people aren't paying for carrots because the option is a stick.
Now you can try and distort the issue of you like, limiting copyright to Hollywood, but the reality of the situation is much bigger. It covers every form of media - music, movies, television, books, games, plays, poems, textbooks, scores, photographs, illustrations, even architectural plans.
Perhaps you're some ignorant philistine who cares nothing for any form of culture, and has no interest in those who do. But for the vast majority of your fellow citizens, a world without these things would be a travesty. And people like you - who clearly haven't thought about this very carefully - are paving the way.
You say, for instance, that physical production was the natural means of enforcing copyright. This is wrong. Physical production allowed publishers to control supply, which is different. Copyright - which is entierly artificial - has always had one and only one mechanism for enforcement: the courts.
Granted, in the absence of physical media, it has been much harder to locate programs in places where the rule of law protects them. But these weren't barriers to enforcement so much as barriers to theft. When they drop, theft skyrockets, placing an unmanageable burden on everyone.
So I agree that we need reform. Where I disagree - sharply - is in the idea that producers need to "figure out a new business model" on their own since, there is only one business model to figure out, and in a state ruled by law, businesses and people are flatly prohibited from taking enforcement into their own hands.
No business can survive without the protection of the law, unless it handles enforcement in a criminal fashion. And since no society can tolerate this on an appreciable scale, it is incumbent upon people to ensure that the rule of law prevails where it's needed. If that means taking the additional effort to ensure that policing is handled in ways that are fair and non-abusive, so be it. That's the hard work of developing and maintaining civilization. These are problems we need to figure out.
But saying "Find a business plan that works without copyright or admit defeat." is the kind of thing only an asshole would say. Why? Because it removes you from the equation. It implies that this isn't your problem, that you, while living in a culture that enjoys the benefits of free and vibrant creativity, have no responsibility for any of it. And it implies that "defeat" is what gets suffered by some external, alien force, not the crown jewels of your own liberal, democratic, civilization. You don't like movies, fine. But of all this things covered by copyright (conveniently listed above) can you honestly say that you don't appreciate ANY of them?
I'm sorry to burst so many bubbles in one post, but in a government of the people, by the people, for the people, in which you are one of the people, it is very much your problem. You simply cannot be a passive spectator. Not here. If something dies because is wasn't suitably protected by law, then you - and everyone around you - share some responsibility. That's the burden of self-government.
Now you've said you're not willing to accept copyright. And you haven't disputed the basic facts of business. And I presume you're not willing to wash your hands of nearly every form of culture developed in the last two centuries which is what happen if every enterprise was reduced to the status of buskers.
So what are your ideas for inflicting the pain that is a necessary part of doing business among humans? What's the source? What's the vector? Taxes on ISPs that are enforced by the IRS? Taxes on property that are collected by the states? You've said what you won't do. But what WILL you do in terms of supporting the enforcement that no producer can legally provide for themselves? Anything? Do you have ANY ideas at all? Or are those of us on the production side trying to work with people who have abdicated their responsibilities for the defining the legal portion of any equation?
We're artists, for god's sake, not legislators. There are absolute legal limits on what we can and cannot do on our own. Telling me I need to figure out a business model that doesn't demand legal protection is the same as telling anyone they need to figure out a business model that doesn't demand legal protection. It's stupid, it's oblivious to the facts of life, and it needs to end.
Ultimately, this is your culture, from the trashy bits to the brilliant. If you want it to see another generation, you need to be part of the conversation surrounding its survival and development. Specifically, you need to be clear about what kind of protection you're going to offer the people who pour their lives into this. That's the deal. People who make the stuff are doing their part. Now kindly step up and do yours.
Your problem is that you don't realize the profound effect of free, perfect duplication of media. And you think that I haven't thought about this at all, probably because I don't share your professional experiences.
limiting copyright to Hollywood
Nope, never said that. If you were paying attention, I said "Find a business plan that works without copyright or admit defeat". People who sell software by the copy? Yep, they're screwed. People who sell books about comparative literature? Screwed. Budding photographer? I think you see where this is going. As you say, this covers all media. Pretty sure I was articulate in saying "media".
This becomes an argument about Hollywood because I haven't seen any professional photographers lobbying congress to record everything that happens on the Internet in case someone doesn't pay to use their photographs.
You say, for instance, that physical production was the natural means of enforcing copyright. This is wrong.
I'm sorry, but you've gone off the rails here. Where is the legal protection of food recipes (not the copyright of their text, but the performance of them)? Or combinations of clothing? It takes effort and skill to come up with good combinations, that investment should be protected. These things are not legally protected because anyone can do it, and so there is no means of enforcement. Copyright worked because printing presses were big and expensive, and the owners colluded to reduce market competition. It was essentially an opt-in system that was beneficial to participants. Modern copying is so trivial that nearly 100% of the time you don't even realize you're doing it. Even when you play by the DRM rules, there is plenty of intermediary copying being done on your behalf. How do you expect to enforce any of this?
that means accepting a framework that will MAKE you pay in the event you refuse to
I don't accept that. Laws are not so arbitrary, and indeed there are consumer protection laws to shield people from undue "enforcement". But you can't force people to pay for the smell of food, or their unauthorized performance of the latest pop hit in the shower, or copying data. To create a society in which enforcement of these is possible requires a distortion that does more damage to society than the property it protects.
eternal vigilance is the price of liberty
Indeed, and it appears that you are on the wrong side of it.
EDIT: Wow, your comment is like twice as long now.
Now you've said you're not willing to accept copyright.
Actually, no. I have said that I pay for my copyrighten material. My argument not so shortsighted. My argument is that copyright is, essentially, doomed. If you are still able to enforce it now, you will not be able to enforce it real soon. I also said that you should come up with a new business plan, which you have violently rejected. Ultimately, that's cool... you'll just find your business to be increasingly less profitable until you have to make money some other way. It isn't a threat, it's a warning.
So what are your ideas for inflicting the pain that is a necessary part of doing business among humans?
Yes, let's start here. I get the impression that you're highly passionate about what you do, which is probably why I'm still replying. You want to continue to do so for the rest of your life, and possibly pass something on to your children. And to that end, you think that convincing me that I am wrong will help you. It won't. I'm the lighthouse telling the aircraft carrer to divert its course: honestly, it's your call.
But looking for a means of forcing people to obey your will is too brutish, simplistic, and obvious. It won't work. You need something that makes people feel good about how they rewarded someone who deserved it. There is both the stick and the carrot.
Do you have ANY ideas at all?
Well, not really. If I did, I would be the first person in line to start a business around it. Maybe it looks like advertising or product placement. Maybe films that are only shown in cinemas. Edward Bernays made money selling pianos by influencing contemporary homebuilding culture to include "music" rooms that people usually filled with pianos.
Telling me I need to figure out a business model that doesn't demand legal protection is the same as telling anyone they need to figure out a business model that doesn't demand legal protection. It's stupid, it's oblivious to the facts of life, and it needs to end.
You are really in the wrong forum to say things like that.
You need to be clear about what kind of protection you're going to offer the people who pour their lives into this. That's the deal. People who make the stuff are doing their part. Now kindly step up and do yours.
How is that my part? I understand most of what you're saying, but cut the dramatics and face the reality. We all pur our lives into what we do. Everyone, all over the globe. Just because what you do has been profitable for a small number of people over the last 50 years doesn't mean it will continue to be. To say you aren't responsible for your position of affluence reflects pretty negatively on you.
The point, which I've clearly clearly failed to communicate, is that this is how EVERY business works. Literally every single one. It's not just law they rely on either, of course. Business also depends on roads, bridges, air traffic control, stable currency, clean air and water, well regulated banks, I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And if the infrastructure goes to hell, so does the commercial layer on top. But within this matrix, the protection of the law is, perhaps the most critical, since its the one thing that absolutely cannot come from any source except the State and its (fully justified) monopoly on force.
What bothers me to no end is this constant refrain from people saying "figure out a business model" to which I say "no business model is possible in the absence of a legal model." Seriously, where are all the great policy ideas? When SOPA/PIPA blew over, did anyone think "Holy smoke, these guys can tell a good story but they REALLY don't know how to write good legislation. We simply cannot leave the development of effective legal models to the media industries themselves. Instead, we need to do our part for the culture by defining and implementing an acceptable governing framework so that the people who produce the stuff we all enjoy can continue to do so effectively."
You know, government of the people, by the people, for the people? I mean, what? You're going to ask the entertainment industry to write your legislation for you? Are you crazy? Our creaky analog-era law isn't great, but it's all we've got and it's better than nothing. And given the raging sense of entitlement that surrounds us, it looks like it's all we're going to get, so it's what we'll have to make do with until sanity prevails or we die waiting.
Modernization of the law that protects the interests of creators isn't special protection, by the way. This is really about getting something commensurate with the basic rule of law that every other business enjoys, and without which, no business survives (black market trades backstopped by criminal enforcers excepted). And I think a lot of the more ridiculous terms (century + copyrights, for instance) would be given up in a heartbeat if there was protection that allowed people to recoup investments in stuff that lives online.
Seriously, two decades after the internet appeared, and there's been no serious policy response that protects creators that has come from anyplace other than the lobbyists we've hired ourselves. It's almost like no one else gives a shit whether we live or die. Free content has been an enormous driver for the tech industry, but there's been zero social responsibility. You'll happily bleed the thing you love to death then complain when it finally collapses and dies.
A friend of mine who has got an Oscar and several Grammys compared it to an ignorant mob storming into an ancient vineyard, chopping down everything they could get their hands on, building a big bonfire, getting rip roaring drunk around the ensuing blaze then looking up from the ashes and ruin in shocked amazement and surprise when they're told there isn't going to be any more.
The cultural machine is like a rain forest or a coral reef. It's taken centuries to develop. When it's gone, it doesn't simply spring back because everyone suddenly sobered up and realized that they made a a tremendous mistake (wait, clear cutting Yosemite was a bad idea? Whoops!)
This isn't creative destruction. It's just destruction. It's madness. It's wrong. And it needs to end.
The problem is that technology has changed our reality. Making the artifact of media used to be difficult, hence profitable, centralized, and regulatable. In that context, protection is easy and acceptable. If a rogue publisher bucked the system, you could march in, trash his equipment and send the other publishers a signal. Now the equipment is in the pocket of hundreds of millions of people, for completely different reasons that are more important than movies.
This TPB article is about one form of online sharing that is actually pretty easy to track. What you need to consider is offline sharing, which is next to impossible to track. Today's desktop hard drive can store roughly 2,000 movies, which with proper curation is basically every movie that matters. In five years, hard drives should be able to store 16 times that - certainly every movie and song that matters. Families will keep an encrypted heirloom drive of every piece of media they value, and share it when no one is looking. If searched, they would present a different file listing.
What will you do then? How can you regulate something that you cannot see? You can try to burn a couple of offenders at the stake, but that's only going to make you look like a monster. I wish that I had an answer for you, but I don't yet, and neither is it my responsibility to have one. I can only tell you that times are changing. This constant refrain of finding a new business model is not to throw you out of the castle, but to warn you of the coming storm.
The truth is that as much as we would like to help, as profitable as it would be to help, we can't figure out how to prevent copying. As far as we can tell, no one can prevent copying without outlawing computers entirely. So no, we are not an ignorant mob storming the vineyard. We are an intelligent mob trying to save those old vines from the coming eternal frost, and hoping that someone figures out how to grow them somewhere else. The destruction is out of our control. Apple and Amazon are doing the best jobs with the iTunes and Kindle stores, but even those look like passing fads when you could have a local copy of every movie, song, and book that has ever been notable.
I hope that you realize that I would love to help you, WE would love to help you, if we had any idea how. Every VC would fund someone who could make this happen. All that we know right now is that legislation will not work, and will have vicious unintended consequences.
What the media industries need is a box office. A point where people pay up front, then get the show delivered. And if everything is available everywhere all the time, then there needs to be a tax on life that covers the costs of what they do.
Essentially , it's about creating a giant pool of money and a giant pool of media. People can stream, copy, play, or have, whatever they like for free. Corporations, on the other hand, must pay. If you're a store, and advertiser, a movie theater, a school, a business, a church - any entity that exists by virtue of a corporate charter must risk loosing that charter if they don't stream everything they touch through an auditable system that is used to distribute the pool of money according to the levels of interest that different things within it attract.
Corporate entities, unlike humans, don't (or shouldn't) have 1st or 4th Amendment rights. We should be able to treat them the same way we treat robots: artificial things designed specifically to serve. And corporate entities also operate in the tangible world, and are in a position to collect money to fill the pool through the course of their activities. Essentially, this is a special tax. If a company wants the benefits of operating in a thriving culture (of which there are many) they can do their part to support it by serving as de-facto box offices.
This is a rough idea, I know, and one that raises more questions than it answers. And it's not post-copyright in the sense that copyright would still function at the corporate level. What it shows is a way to think about paying for work in a Constitutionally permissible fashion while avoiding the nightmare scenario of total surveillance at the individual level.
What about a voluntary optional pricing system, a la Reznor's Ghosts[1]? Lucas also made a substantial amount of money from merchandising, which is far easier to regulate[2].
Also, box office revenues are still high[3]. That only helps about a hundred films a year, but it still generates healthy revenue for major studios.
[1 http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2008/03/re... ]
[2 http://www.statisticbrain.com/star-wars-total-franchise-reve...]
[3 http://torrentfreak.com/pirates-hollywood-sets-10-billion-bo...]
People at the top right now got their starts in the 1990's Indy boom. What you're seeing now is like the light from a distant galaxy. My point is that the commensurate runway for the here and now is caving in on itself.
"But Merchandising" is the worst argument ever, since the range of material that can work in this paradigm is astonishingly narrow.
Also, you're not getting reliable information from TorrentFreak. I'm sorry, but these people just aren't going to give you straight story. If they had any integrity, they'd account for inflation (adjusting for that, and the peak Box Office year was actually 2002). Also, they wouldn't cherry-pick by limiting their analysis to box office revenues while ignoring the declines from every other sales channel.
Here's a much more realistic look at what life is really like: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/28/business/la-fi-ct-fi.... Again, this is the future you're looking at. The starvation that's setting in at this level is what people who care about the future of these mediums should be focused on.
What's really awful about this is that vector for piracy isn't people swapping stuff among themselves. Personally, I don't have a problem with that. That's like playing music at parties. It's part of human life. The issue is sites that aggregate pirated content to make money selling advertising. Those are the people I want to see thrown in jail. And I want to fine the living shit out of the advertisers who appear there. Not that they chose the outlets - that's the work of their ad buyers who are invariably third parties. The point is to drive those fuckers out of business too by making sure advertisers suffer enough pain to ensure that their ads aren't being served on illegitimate sites. Once they start having to pay serious fines, they'll stop doing business with people who can't guarantee that their ads won't show up in shitty places.
Again, this isn't some guy sharing a DVD with his father-in-law. This is people building building layers of commercial enterprise around the amazing "free" resource that is pirated IP.
I'm sorry, but no fucking way. And this doesn't require an Orwellian police state to deal with. People making money in this scenario all have corporate offices and return addresses (e.g. Grooveshark). All that's needed is an arrest warrant and a hearing.
You think that shutting down the ad supported streaming services will solve the problem, but they're small fry compared to what's coming. By the time I send my kids to college, they will take with them a phone capable of storing 2,000 TB: enough capacity for everything that has established classic value in human history, in their pocket. Everyone will. Recognizing that online sharing is slow and risky and mostly important for the last year's worth of unevaluated new media, they could basically forego the public Internet altogether during their studies.
They wouldn't be sharing media with their new friends because their friends would also already have everything that matters. They'll pay to watch the latest movies, but outside of box office sales no one will have any idea how popular movies actually are because there will be no external record of performances and the number of "copies" of a movie that exist will approach the number of personal computing devices.
Grooveshark generating revenue off of unlicensed media might sting, but in less than a decade the ability to know who has a copy of a piece of media and how many times it has been watched is going to disappear completely. It will certainly take an Orwellian state to enforce copyright then.
Put these factors together and you'll find that creation itself encompasses a far greater range, and with that, the sum of human culture and knowledge grows exponentially.
Your big blind spot here is that you're thinking of copyright infringement as just downloading. Both when looking at whether it's right or wrong ("what's the harm if someone in Saudi downloads Pirates of the Caribbean?") and now from the enforcement standpoint. The real value of copyright, to content creators, is to keep a Google or Apple from coming along, digitizing every movie and song, and selling them for a nominal price to drive Android/iOS device sales.
Seriously? If you believe this, there isn't much more I can say.
Sounds bizarre, but used to be quite common, wealthy individuals commissioning a piece of art (music, a play, etc).
And of course kickstarter is paving the way for a mass pay before production business model for all sorts of different cultural endeavors (music, video games, films, etc).
I think copyright has been a net benefit to society over the last 100 years, but it has now become too unwieldy. Copyright was never "natural".