MPAA: The Cloud Is A Threat To Us And The Best Response Is Censorship

In a way they are, but so are the laws against theft, fraud, embezzlement, tortious interference with a contract, you name it. You can argue about what the scope of the "right" here should be, and that is a separate argument, but once a right is established, people should have the protection of the government, within reason, in securing that right.

You probably don't oppose the fact that we don't leave protection of more traditional property rights to "market solutions." That would of course be ridiculous because you can't have markets without property rights.

If money were somehow removed from the equation, surely the same concentration of political power would exist, and the same parties would possess the same interest in directing its use; it doesn't seem that itself is a source of influence, but just a means employed in applying that influence.

So how does removing money from the politics actually prevent the MPAA, RIAA, and other cartels from using politics as a means to alter market conditions in their favor? I think we might need significantly more fundamental reforms; trying to restrict the role of money in politics, with all else being equal, might even backfire, and cause something even more concerning than money to become the dominant medium for influencing politics.

I don't think you can erase the influence of money; if nothing else, there is a baseline of people who will simply ignore the law.

As for technology changing which laws are reasonable, that is definitely true. But I don't see why technology has made it less reasonable to grant ownership rights in creative works. It has simply made it easier to violate those rights. Should the ease with which a right can be violated be a criterion for deciding which rights should be granted?

This is a ridiculous trope. Say I take a Luis Vuitton bag from a store, leaving an amount of money that precisely compensates LVMH for the cost of replacing and restocking the bag, along with the fair rental value of the bag during the time until it is restocked. No harm no foul right? LVMH has not been materially harmed, right? They are in exactly the same position they would be if I hadn't taken the bag. Since I compensated them for the marginal cost of the bag, all they have lost is the potential profit on a potential sale, and there is after all no guarantee I could have afforded the bag anyway, right?

In our system, we don't measure harm in terms of the cost to put someone back to the status quo ante. We also include the expected profit. E.g. if you breach a contract with someone, which causes them to lose $200, you don't just owe them the $200, you owe them the $200 plus their expected profit on the contract. We do this because in our system, people are entitled to the benefit of the bargain. People are entitled to profit from the difference between what the market will pay for a good and the cost of producing the good, even when the marginal cost of that good approaches zero.

Re: analogies, analogies are tremendously valuable. They show us how things that seem different can actually be understood in terms of familiar concepts. The harm from copying is actually a perfect scenario in which analogies are useful. The common refrain among people who are pro-piracy is that the marginal cost of a copy approaches zero, so "no harm" is done by copying. This is based on the fallacy that digital copying is somehow sui generis. Yet, analogizing to other situations shows us that in the rest of the law, we don't protect the marginal cost--we protect the sale price. We protect peoples' right to profit from the market price of their products. The fact that the marginal cost of producing a good is 35% of the sale price (iPhone) or 5% of the sale price (LVMH bag), or 1% of the sale price (textbook) or 0.1% of the sale price (an MP3) is irrelevant.

I can't pay the mortgage with stats from the Pirate Bay. 10,000 people viewing my film for free is satisfying on an artistic level, but 1000 people paying a $ for the privilege is what actually puts food on the table. I don't want to get into a long argument and Rayiner is making these points excellently, but I'd like to point out that profit and loss are not abstractions that happen only to already-rich people in Beverly Hills who will have to be content with only one Ferrari this year.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/09/18/film-school-roger-...

and http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1803469?uid=3739560... are very much worth a read to understand why the film industry views piracy with such trepidation.

I love how you just throw that out blithely as if it were a well-established fact. In fact, the odds of a given film turning a profit are about 1 in 30. For a detailed examination of the economics of the film industry, I recommend the book Open Wide. For a brief introduction, try this: http://www.baselineintel.com/research-wrap?detail/C8/what_ar... and other articles on this site.

Now, part of this is skewed by the fact that many films are just bad. Not so bad they're good, so bad they're bad - incomprehensible dialog, blurry photography, murky lighting. Let's dismiss 2/3 of films as bad - that's excessive, but let's be harsh. So about 1/10 of the remaining films can make money. Half of those lack commercial elements, they're competent but terribly dull and hard to sell. Of the 5 films you have left that are competently made and have potential commercial appeal, one will sell. There's a <1% chance it will be a hit; more likely it will eventually recoup its costs via foreign sales (as a sweetener in a package) or from rental income via Netflix or the like. That takes about 5 years.

That's indie films. Big studio films tend to lose money more often than not as well. I am on first name terms with one billionaire who writes a single check to pay for all the costs of a big famous film you probably saw 4 or 5 times a year (I would prefer not to mention names). 4/5 of those films lose money despite stars, critical acclaim, excellent technical elements, and a great story. Eventually, most of them will break even - that's why you cast stars, you can extrapolate sales with reasonable accuracy once you know the opening data. But the financial destiny of most films is to offset tax liability for the small number of films that do make bank.

I own a financial interest in a number of the films I've worked on. I keep the documentation mainly for souvenir value, but I have zero expectation of ever seeing a penny from them. I find it amusing but also frustrating when you roll in here and tell me how profitable it is.