The Software Police vs. The CD Lawyers

guerby writes: "Dan Bricklin's (author of Visicalc) article The Software Police vs. the CD Lawyers recently reprinted on the ACM Ubiquity magazine provides an interesting (and debatable) parallel between the SIIA (Software and Information Industry Association) and RIAA (well known to /. readers ;-) strategy against 'pirates.'" It does raise some good points -- and helps explain why groups like the BSA don't raise hackles the way the RIAA does: they tend to go after the large-scale counterfeiters, not kids with a cracked copy of Photoshop.

Comments

Re:There is no excuse for it... EVER.

[Kiss the Blade]

You may be right, but thats not the point. The point is that piracy is a perfectly natural thing, and that the RIAA's actions are merely exacerbating it. They can ban Napster, but then you just get Gnutella to deal with. They have to accept that this type of music distribution is here to stay, and work with the public's needs, not against.

I think we are looking at a future when all music is totally free, and artists will make there money through other channels (live performance, for example). Even better, the recording industry itself might die a death. Just imagine - no more intense promotion of artists, hype etc. Artists would have to start from the grass roots.

One thing I wonder about, though, is books. What if a novel equivalent of napster appeared (please excuse the pun:-)? How would authors make money then? Through publicly reading their works? I don't think so. I can't think of a mechanism whereby authors could continue to make cash, which is why I would be much more scared of the internet if I were a novelist rather than a musician.

And perhaps the most telling quote

[Green Monkey]

We found out that when we made it easier to use our software (i.e., no copy protection) users were happier and we still got paid. When we made it hard, they just didn't buy or used special programs to get around our schemes.

"Special programs"? Does this sound familiar to anyone? Take out a loan and buy a clue, RIAA and MPAA and friends -- people just don't want to put up with complicated protection schemes. Most people probably don't want to pirate material in large volumes. But they also don't have any desire to put up with inconvient copyright schemes (cough, cough, SDMI), regardless of whatever "noble" intentions ("Let's stop those pirates!") they might be designed with.

Look what happened to Circuity City's DIVX. It failed not because it was immoral or evil, but because people just didn't want to have to put up with such an awkward system. And, ultimately, nothing that isn't accepted by the mainstream populace will ever be worthwhile. They can throw out new data formats and encryption schemes until the cow comes on, but if puts too much of a burden on the average consumer (who just wants his movies / music), it will simply never catch on.

After all, the customer is No. 1.

Article is VERY flawed

[alexhmit01]

The software industry went after large counterfeiters, instead of users. They also seeked to educate users, and scare corporations.

There are NO corporate buyers of music, so you'd HAVE to go after the individual. However, the RIAA hasn't gone after individuals.

They went after the "large-scale" copiers (MP3.com) and the "large-scale copier enabler" (napster).

I personally think that MP3.com is in the moral right (although not the legal right) and Napster is in the legal right (and moral right, but I maintain that copying for personal use is fair use).

HOWEVER, the parallel to the counterfeitting shop is the napsters of the world...

The article is flawed, the RIAA is doing what the SPA did... Go after the big boys, and leave your customers alone. SDMI was a bad idea, and the pricing model sucks, but they haven't been suing people for using napster.

Alex

Piracy is KEWL

[nicholas.]

personally, i like the idea of digital piracy. i tend not to partake in it myself (emphasis on the word tend).

digital piracy has the potential to tear down an infrastructure that we see as RIGHT, even though it may not be.

elaboration:

music piracy is a really great thing. i hope it sinks the recording industry. the recording is EVIL. it steals artists rights and property and benefits very few, very successful artists. artists have very little to gain from the recording industry. for instance, even the biggest artists, metallica for intance, don't make more than 50 cents per 15 dollar compact disc. so if they were to sell 10 million albums this would amount to 5 million dollars. not chump change, but FAR below the amount of money Metallica makes every year. metallica makes all their money on tours and merchandising, something that they don't need record companies for.

imagine if all music were distributed over the internet for free, if the music were good enough, people would go pay to see the artists perform the music. much the same way people buy cds and go see the artist if they like the music. digital or physical, it makes very little difference. except that w/o the recording industry the artist would be able to keep their publishing rights, not worry about distribution and not get trapped into unfair contracts for money needed upfront to record albums. artist would get paid for performing (where most of their money comes from anyways) and record companies would go away. sounds perfect to me.

software piracy has the potential to do much the same thing. it would be a wonderful thing if every copy of Microsoft' windows were pirated. or if all commercial operating systems were pirated for that matter. in essence, this would lead to a free OS for all. it's been shown that a quality OS can be made by open source communities with free labor. imagine if your operating system was free and had mass user acceptance.stealing from MS and other is actually a good thing. if ms went bankrupt people would use a free os that would eventually (if it hasn't already) surpassed windows in quality.

stealing applications has nearly as much potential. obviously at some point programmers need to get paid. but do you think that adobe or microsoft pay progammers nearly enough? even if you make 200 thousand a year hacking away in redmond, it's nothing compared to the money MS makes off your labor. imagine if all applications development were shareware based. developers could reap the fruits of their labors much more directly. it's not too different than big corporate farming versus small organic farming. small organic farmers actually earn MORE than by being a part of some huge corporate farming collective that buys their crops too cheaply. a small nimble software company that operated on a shareware model, could compete effectively and make more money for the individuals. because they were relying on a shareware model, they wouldn't have to worry about distribution costs and their small size would allow them to be price comptetive.

think how kewl it would be if there were 20 different small companies that created word processors that all used a standardized (ISO standard maybe) .DOC file. or we have today's 100 mb word process full of bloat that doesn't even handle it's own proprietary .DOC file correctly.

now i'm not advocating that digital piracy is always justified. nor am i saying we should all go steal cars and computer. what i am saying is that digital piracy has the potential to change software and music for the better.

revolution through stealing? hey, it worked for robin hood ; )

Bleh

[Keelor]

Overall, this article is kind of disappointing. Bricklin has a great description of how the software industry works, their history, and why their piracy prevention has worked well. He then goes on to show how people want to listen to music. Then, in the last paragraph, he says that the music industry is doing it all wrong--not a single example, nor any real ideas on how the music industry should apply what the software industry learned to music.

I don't disagree with Bricklin's ideas, I just think that his article should have balanced his details a bit more. It seems like he devoted so much time to explaining where he came from that he ran out space to explain his ideas.

~=Keelor