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Tim O'Reilly Says Piracy is Progressive Taxation
Idmat writes "In Tim's latest opus, he reflects on the lessons of his experience as a publisher: (1) Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy, (2) Piracy is progressive taxation; (3) Customers want to do the right thing, if they can; (4)Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy; (5) File sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing publishers; (6)"Free" is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service; and finally, courtesy of Larry Wall, (7)There's more than one way to do it. "
I think many people, like me, download music and then buy it. Artists like Moby are very positive about MP3's. Think about it, the artists themselves just want their music to be played and loved.. the money is just a bonus.
Ciryon
While Piracy does take away from some business it also generates others. It may not help the businesses that it "steals" from, but it doesn't truley damage them. A company such as Microsoft that makes billions of dollars really feels no pain. A ebook that has already been sold in stores for years does not miss a beat. I mean yeah it's nice to get something for free on the internet, but it is also really nice to get a brand new box of software, or a book still in it's plastic, or any number of other new bought from the store items
those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. -isaac asimov
Although, I might not agree with the point that most everybody who likes an mp3 will go buy the album, I do believe it helps more than it hurts.
If you like a particular band, not only would you be in the market for the album, you might also want their t-shirt, stickers for your box or what not. The only parties that would suffer from piracy, would be the recording industry. It's their business model that is flawed, thanks to the internet. Most of the $ spent on a CD doesn't go to the artist anyway.
Would an artist rather have 1 million listeners, where 5% buy the cd, and maybe something else, or 10,000 loyal listeners, and no further audience.
The biggest benefit of filesharing, as I see it, is it promotes better works. If someone turns out to be a one hit wonder, do they deserve the same compensation, as a band that consistently turns out good work??
Although the percentage of the audience that purchases the album, might drop, if the listener base increases at a greater rate, isn't this better?
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Actually, I would argue that payola and indimidation rackets cost the RIAA more money than piracy, but they probably write them off as business expenses anyway.
Customers want to do the right thing, if they can.
I'd say that this is completely true. I myself and many (if not most) of my friends "pirate" software, movies and music frequently. In fact, we've got several terabytes worth of pirated material between us just among me and my closest friends. Does that mean we never buy software, movies or music?
Definitely NOT, in fact I've never bought as much software, movies and music as I do now. I've got a couple of shelves filled with game boxes, many of those from producers that would normally be far too obscure for me to purchase otherwise, had I not tried out their software in advance. Our DVD collection is starting to rival our VHS collection, and we shouldn't mention how much I've been to the movies recently. As for music... well, I never listen much to music anyway but thanks to the net I've had the opportunity to find performers I'd never think of buying normally.
If I find something I like, feel I have a use for or just plain want to support, I do the right thing and buy a copy of my own. My friends do too, and I think so do most people.
I used to work for a small computer game company, and the owner's attitudes was that piracy was actually good! It meant people actually liked your product enough to want to pirate it. It's almost like free advertising. Plus, many of those people were never going to buy in the first place - if they couldn't get it for free, they'd just do without. So it doesn't really count as lost sales regardless.
I know myself when I wanted to buy the lastest version of Microsoft Office, discovering it ran $600 (!!!!) I decided to pass. It's just not worth that much to me. *If* I were to acquire a pirated copy of Office XP, it isn't lost revenue for Microsoft since I would never buy for $600 anyways, I just can't afford to pay that much. If you listen to the SPA, they would count it as lost sales, which is why their numbers are worthless. In fact, I recall reading one interview of an SPA person who actually outright said they just "make up" dollar figures for the cost of piracy. *rolls eyes*
Government IS the problem.
Someone who actually understands that other causes, like shoplifting, cost the MPAA/RIAA more money than pirating.
I don't know how it is where you live, but here the shops have to buy the records before they can sell them. That means RIAA (and the artist) earns the same whether the record was bought or shoplifted.
I tend to disagree with this. I think it is safe to assume that a majority of the people in the US will always take the 'free' alternative if they can get away with it with ease. People says that "If the music industry let me pay $.50 per song to download in a unrestricted format, I would pay instead of steal" and while some would, most would still get their music from kazaa. The reason why we hear people on slashdot say this so much is that they know a system like this will never happen with the current RIAA. Instead they decide to use it as a poor moral justification to their illegal music swapping habit.
In conclusion: (1) People like stealing if it is anonymous, easy, and leaves no possibility of getting caught and (2) People need to stop trying to justify their actions as if it were some kind of morally justified duty bound civil disobedience
On a side note, I have gigs of downloaded mp3's but will not pretend that I have a good reason for breaking the law.
*hides from all the -1 flamebait mod points*
I still remember that about 10 years ago (before the majority of programs where released on CD-ROM, but I don't know if that has anything to do with it), nobody I knew bought their software. Everybody copied.
;)).
Nowadays, there is still a lot of copying going on (I have to agree on that), but almost everyone I know has tons of software they actually bought. So I guess that is going in the right direction.
About books, I know some people who downloaded some O'Reilly books from Kazaa but still most people buy their books (me too, because having a book in your hands is a way better feeling than reading it of your computer screen).
About movies, I think some gets lost there, but not a lot. If you have a good broadband connection downloading movies doesn't take a lot of time. After that you can create a VCD and use your DVD player to watch it (or you can watch it on your monitor, which I find not very comfortable, even if you have a 22"). The quality can be very, very good. So you might think a lot of money gets lost there, right? Wrong (I guess
People still want to see movies in a theatre. Nothing beats that atmosphere. And if you look at the amounts of money LOTR or Harry Potter raised (which is still way up there with blockbusters from the past), there can not be much loss there.
Maybe smaller (cult) movies suffer, but I guess not, because there is (and always has been) a select audience for them who still wants to see them in theatres.
Also, more people buy movies nowadays and we have DVD to thank for that.
About music, yes I think money gets lost there. It is really easy to download some MP3's of the Internet and burn them on CD. People will still buy albums, but only the once they really want to have (yes I know there are a lot of people who still buy tons and tons of CDs, but I'm talking about the majority here).
So money gets lost. And what does the music industry do? They try to sue people. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They *can't* stop this by trying to scare people. They have to find other ways for people to stop copying and buy their music again (or maybe they have to live with piracy but still find ways to convince people to buy their music). They have to find something that will do for music that DVD does for film. Don't ask me for a solution, but I think legal action is the wrong path.
So, in summary, the only market where money really gets lost is in music (or at least that is what I think).
Maybe there wouldn't be so much shoplifting if CDs didn't cost almost $20 a piece.
A number of times I have attempted to subscribe to book publishers email list to get early warning of the release of books I may want to buy. If we eliminate all those publishers whose web sites plain didn't work, we are left all the rest that never sent out anything to their list. That's correct, not one of the publishers have ever announced anything on the lists I signed up for (and my email does work.)
I can't help but notice that more and more companies are losing the ability to sell to anything but a captive audience. Amazon sends me emails about Pratcett and Tolkein but nothing about the 10,000 other SciFi/Fantasy writers I may wish to read.
I'm here, I've got some cash, for Ghod's sake someone please try and sell me something new!!
The importance of this point cannot be overstated. Honestly, how many of us would burn far fewer CDs if they cost only $3 or $4? It's not even a matter having the CD cover or avoiding the trouble of downloading. I think most people feel more comfortable using the proper means. However, at $17 a CD and $25 a DVD many of us cannot afford the level of entertainment being thrown at us. So we pirate.
Publishers have the ability to reduce, perhaps eliminate, piracy by lowing the price to the point the majority of consumers are willing to pay. If Photoshop were $25 or could be used on a charge per time basis how many people would sit for hours trying to download it?
The prices are kept high for the obvious reason that publishers make more money with an expensive product and some pirating than they would with an affordable product and no pirating. Thus, since the publishers themselves choose to encourage piracy with overpriced products I have little sympathy for their whining.
Whoa! Big difference!
Insurance fraud means that the insurance company is actually PAYING OUT money where they shouldn't have to. There is, in other words, an actual cost to the insurance company.
Piracy on the other hand, means that someone makes a copy of something, an action that doesn't cost the producer of the original anything.
Now, if you had a painting for sale and I took it from you, that's theft. That's comparable to insurance fraud, because I actually take something of value from you. If I instead photograph that painting, I might be violating copyright law, but you still have the painting and you're still able to sell it, hence no theft. Of course, there might be the issue of indirect costs if I print large number of copies of your painting, so that people will buy those instead, but that's a completely different thing.
I think that this attitude - which seems prevalent particularly amongst my work colleagues is a Bad Thing - I don't care if we change the method of distribution or if the record companies go bust but it is important that the artists receive payment for their work.
Then go see them live. Buy a shirt. Buy two. Buy the band hot dogs. Buy them a beer. Buy them a few music lessons... If you really want to pay an artist for their work, go out and see them play, especially if it's in a venue where they get to sell their own merchandise without a middleman. It's how a lot of bands make a living.
I've been working with computer book publishing in one capacity or another over the past 9 years: as a technical editor, author, and computer tech.
It used to be that you could go into your local chain bookstore such as Barnes & Noble and find at least 1 full back-to-back aisle of computer books of all kinds: self-help, programming, graphic arts, certification. Today, the whole book industry is depressed, but the computer book publishers have been hit hardest in my opinion.
No need for self-help books--the advances of both Windows and Mac OS, as well as their ubiquity among the public, means that fewer users need them. Geeks like us are never a large community and sometimes would rather slit our wrists than buy a book, so programming and administration books have dipped sharply in sales (I personally know--I co-wrote one of them).
So today, you'll find a few certification books along with a slightly larger group of programming books, and a very tiny amount of self-help books. If it weren't for Amazon, my book wouldn't be around.
In my opinion, part of the problem comes from the lack of true creativity or innovation in the industry. The Microsoft juggernaut and its "embrace and extend" philosophy (read: assimilate, compromise, or condemn) is partly to blame for this. The lack for computer industry members to consider something new or different is another part.
Not to toot Apple's horn (I do primarily work with Apple products and comment on them a lot here, so I might sound like a shrill), but they are among a handful of companies that are resisting the fears and dropping out new ideas--not anything necessarily innovative, but perhaps core application ideas that spur new ideas that sell products. Examples: "The digital hub," "multimedia," "desktop publishing," movie making, the use of USB, etc.
As I said, Apple and said companies didn't invent or design these ideas, but should be credited with its popularization in the industry, which forms the basis for a spurt of PC sales.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Don't let the term 'New Labour' fool you - with a few exceptions (Brown at the treasury is the most significant, and unfortunately is showing signs both of reverting to the traditional 'throw tax revenues at state-provided services' mindset of earlier Labour governments, and of preparing a bid to supercede Blair) few of the current bunch would recognise socialism even if it came up to them and bit them on the knee.
In "The Hacker Crackdown" he said (or may have been quoting a police detective) "10% of the population will steal anything not nailed down, 10% will never steal anything, the battle is for the hearts and minds of the rest."
Best Slashdot Co
I think your analogy is slightly broken. Insurance fraud is just grift, i.e. taking money that will be missing elsewhere. There is money being moved, not copied or duplicated.
"Piracy" more closely resembles passing tapes or photocopying. It distributes the core content to a wider audience. Some people even argue that it helps boost sales as a form of free advertising.
As for the software industry, there is a working model called shareware. You'll never get rich by writing shareware, but the real purpose is to get a product out that would otherwise never reach its intended audience. Good shareware authors get noticed by bigger houses, and can even win jobs or contracts. Even Apple has bought out shareware applications and added them to their own software!
The other reason why people buy software in stores, even when a downloadable version is available, is the things like the install CD in case anything "goes South", the physical handbooks, and the simple feeling of holding the darn thing in your hands. It's the whole "added value" thingy.
So really, IMO the real victims of unauthorised copying are the artists and writers who make the packaging and internal goodis, since you never see their work.
Agreed. Dead tree archives are very useful. I can open them next to anyone's computer, there's no chance it'll ever run out of batteries, and I can annotate (well, furiously scribble and sometimes flat out cross out sections). Sure, you can get O'Reilly bookshelves on CD, but trust me, after working in front of a monitor X hours a day, you really want to focus your eyes on something else besides a computer screen.
What if you cannot buy a disk?
I don't mean "You cannot afford to buy a disk", or "You are unwilling to budget the money to buy a disk", I mean "I have money, but no-one is selling the disk I want"?
Consider this: I got into The KLF some years after they were hot. While you can fairly easily purchase The White Room, Doctoring The Tardis, and Chill Out, you cannot find any of the older KLF albums new. Period. The KLF burned all their older albums as a result of some copyright problems.
OK, so how can I buy that which no longer exists? Now, while I would happily purchase the albums if I could, now I would pretty much be reduced to getting them via a file sharing service (the true irony here would be if The KLF (Kopyright Liberation Front) objected to being traded over a file sharing network.).
Or consider "Song of the South" - You will NEVER see that movie again, because The Mouse is so Politically Correct that they would never air that movie (and I don't see why not - Uncle Remus's tales were NOT racist!) Since there is no profit in keeping the movie preserved, it will in all probability rot away in a vault next to Walt.
Sorry, but I begin to think that copyright should have a clause forcing it to expire if the material is not distributed in a reasonable and non-discriminatory fashion.
Just a little thought-grenade I thought I'd lob into the conversation.
www.eFax.com are spammers
- "..."Free" is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service..."
Yup, they're called CDs.It's possible to purchase MP3s these days, at prices comparable to the per-track cost of a CD. But why? Most people can't discern the difference, but with bloody expensive equipment it is noticable.
Take my recent experience:
- My home theater receiver died recently, and I just got around to shopping for a new one -- the contenders started out with a Sony ES unit, a couple Denon THX-Ultra certified models, and a Pioneer Elite THX receiver.
It was a very profound reminder of why I shouldn't put money straight into MP3s without getting the source material on CD... you're not getting the whole sound. (Heck, even with CDs you aren't... but it's better than MP3.) It's even making me think about SACD (Super Audio CD) and DVD-Audio... and I don't have perfect hearing.Then I made a mistake.
I listened to a mid-level, non-THX McIntosh. (The MHT-100, if you must know. "A/V Receiver" on the drop-down menu.)
Oh. My. God.
I heard things on a CD I didn't know were there -- and yes, the only part of the equation that changed was the receiver. Same speakers, same source, same volume level and EQ (none), same room.
It's a $5000 (US), 92-pound behemoth that looks like it was designed by the same guy who designed the McIntosh 1700 back in the 60s. It's twice the size of anything else, looks ugly... and sounds incredible. I could buy 5 Sonys at that price, yet I'm still having a really hard time justifying the Sony after hearing it.
In my perfect world, the recording industry encourages trading of mid-quality MP3s because they realize it's free advertising, and people will go out and buy CDs knowing they get a higher-quality product and better sound.
But it's not a perfect world, things don't work that way, and we're busy making the lawyers rich.
Lovely.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Then why was Robin Hood a hero? That story illustrates the moral idea of "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor" beautifully. Morals are set by the population that has them, and there are a hell of a lot more poor people than rich people. Besides, I don't see how stealing from rich people is any different than taxing them more, and nearly everyone agrees that rich people should pay more taxes than poor people. (Notice I didn't say a higher percentage, just more.)
A publisher publishes something that P2P advocates like, and the comments are filles with "see we're right" comments.
To me it's still a matter of not liking some copyright owner's way of selling the rights and bluntly ignoring it.
I wonder how people here would feel if this amount of people started to ignore GPL/BSD licence (insert your own favourite).
No. I assure you it is YOU who are quite desperately wrong. Completely, on the wrong side of history and an offence under the eyes of all that is holy.
Communism really does seem to be an unworkable and inefficient system - it relies on an oversimplified 19th century view of economics (just like pure free-market corporate anarchists do as well). Nobody is even arguing in favour of that nonsense anymore, so just drop it.
Socialism is not wrong, it is profoundly right (and is not the same as communism, this is merely a lie the Powers That Be want you to believe), and will even try to save yours and your children's ignorant asses when the rich&powerful come to take away everything you have.
Homosexuality is only wrong if you are a True Believer in bronze age mythology, which (sad to say) many people still are.
Taking something that doesn't belong to you is theft, regardless of the wealth of your target.
Your post is just a rationalization for your own moral weakness.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Right. Except that Mister Bowie is about as lame a self-promoting parasite as you can get.
So, he had a Rio last year. I had one, too, and took it back to the shop after three days. If Bowie kept his, it's probably because he's got more dollars than brain-cells.
Bowie is just a has-been, jumping on the internet band-wagon and also having a dig at that other has-been "formerly known as Prince".
Well, the two of them are just wasters.
I would like to see recorded music costless and many more real artists making an honest living from live performances.
I would like culture to be a participation event, not a simple manufactured mass-marketed commodity for those whose mentality is particularly ovine.
The article was absolutely brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that it made me wonder why the music industry is being so reactionary about all of this when many print publishers are doing their best to embrace the new technology.
The difference, I think, lies in O'Reilly's description of the mathematical necessity for go-betweens to facilitate interaction between millions of buyers and sellers. If that really was the basis of the recording industry, then everything else he said would immediately apply and we could justly accuse the recording companies of a deplorable lack of vision. However, in the case of the music industry, I don't think that is the whole story.
When I buy a book, I either go to Amazon and look at the customer reviews (for technical books) or wander into a shop and look around until I see something interesting (for novels). My decision is therefore based either on my own, (relatively un-manipulated) opinions, or those of other consumers. Despite the existence of poster and tv adverts for books, the role of a book seller is therefore primarily to present me with a wide selection of books and let me make my own decision.
The music industry is in a very different position. Through radio and TV, people are continually hearing music which is currently available. Liking a piece of music is an odd psychological phenomenon which depends heavily on repetition of the tune and perceptions of what your peer-group likes. Since the music industry has a lot of control over what you and your friends hear day in, day out, they have a remarkable amount of control over what you like, and therefore what you will buy.
The truth of this can easily be seen by the fact that it is possible for the music industry to make vast wads of cash out of such utter crap as Will Young covering Light My Fire (and, oh, I still tremble with rage at thought of that sacrilege) and the Cheeky Girls rambling on about their bums.
That level of control over the minds of customers far outstrips anything the print publishers can exert. It's a license to print money, and I believe the recording industry is scared of losing it. A well implemented peer-to-peer service in which it is possible not only to download music you know you want, but to be exposed to new music in a way the music industry cannot control could be their worst nightmare.
I don't want the music industry to disappear and, as the article pointed out, it never will. I just want it to be reduced from its current role as the definer of popular culture to to its proper place as a facilitator of popular culture. If that can happen, one way or another, we will all be better off
"The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."
Anyway in the current copyright laws copying is defined like stealing
well, kinda. in the UK a cort case in the 70's explicitly defined copyright infringement wasn't theft and threw a case out of court for it yet all the big companies keep saying it "copyright infringement is theft" "NO, IT's NOT"
I actually complained to the UK radio advertising authority once about a BSA ad saying that computer piracy is theft. the radio advertising authority completely didn;t want to know. they didn't give a shit
dave
PS. the case in questoin was oxford vs moss (iirc) a case where an oxford university student walked into the staffroom when it was quiet, photocopied an exam paper and walked out with the copy. oxford university accused hi oftheft and took him to court. the judges asked OU what they had actually lost, what was actually missing. when OU had to concede that nothing had actually been stolen the judge threw it out
I would like to see recorded music costless and many more real artists making an honest living from live performances.
That'd be nice... but most artists work on the exact opposite schema. Their concerts are only worthwhile so far as they promote the record.
I'd like to see recorded music for sale via micropayments (microauctions?), and have a costless central information exchange for tracking down the bands & seeing them when they come to town.
If the system is microauction, the fans in each market can list a price they're willing to pay for a concert & alter it any time before purchase. If the numbers work out (after a "uncollectable" discount), the band comes to the area. If not, well, shucks.
I would like culture to be a participation event, not a simple manufactured mass-marketed commodity for those whose mentality is particularly ovine.
Most of the great parts about our culture are done by competetive artistic competition. If it's not for record sales, it's for private sales of whole works--and if not that, it's jockying for patronage.
I'd like to see RIAA (and the industry it protects) reworked into an "agent and CD press" outfit, where the money from a CD is split along three persons (press, agent, and artist) and artists aren't forced to pay for the press or the agent's money. (A cash-based system where no party can spend money that they don't have might be good too...)
Add in paper:
Movie ABC XYZ
$18 DVD
$10 VHS Tape
Album ABC XYZ
$15 CD
$9 Tape
Yes it is cheaper for them to product the CD and DVD. And don't throw me a line about start-up costs and crap like that. They have been charging more for CD than tape since they came out with no justification. IF anything tapes should be more expensive than CD's.
We're all distracted by the side issue, here. It's not piracy vs shoplifting, or anything like that.
The simple fact is that the Internet has made the current business model of music publishing and distribution obsolete.
That's not to say that we don't need music stores, or that we don't need the RIAA. (Snicker if you like, but they do have a role to play, and it may well be more then the pre/de-emphasis curve for vinyl recording.) It's the business model, plain and simple. They have three prime roles: studio work (recording/mixing, etc), promotion, and distribution.
Studio work is diminishing, because the declining cost of technology brings it to an ever-increasing number of people. Basement and garage studios abound, and it goes uphill from there. Sure there's a lot of drek, but there's some good stuff, too. But this isn't the big issue.
Promotion is one big issue. The big labels really work on the STAR. For the most part, they are able to pick a random artist, shove them into airtime with music and videos, and make them a STAR. Then they sit back and harvest cash. The rest of those people who want to make music are a 'cost of doing business' to be minimized, albeit a potential source for the next STAR.
This role is under jeapordy from the Internet and file sharing, because they allow us to make up our own minds. The real effect here would be the diminution of the STAR. Not that we won't have them, but they'll be less significant, and under less control, AND probably more talented.
The other big issue is distribution. Once upon a time, their role was to get music out there. Now their role appears to be preventing music from getting out there. They manufacture scarcity. But that's also not to say that CD stores are obsolete, because they're not. But we/they need to understand the difference between mp3 and CD, and quit pricing the things like platinum.
In a technology-adjusted business model, the RIAA and the major labels still exist. Ironically, they may still make the same profit levels. But they shed most of their control over STARs and airtime, and they have to work harder for a larger range of artists.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The effect of P2P has on a record company is:
#1 Revenue gained from CD sales from consumers who bought CD after sampling and wouldn't have bought it previously
minus
#2 Revenue lost from consumers who would have bought CD not buying it after sampling it.
minus
#3 Revenue lost from consumers who would have bought the CD and after sampling it decided not to.
If this was a positive value then the record company would be happy, if negative then they will oppose P2P.
Usually the RIAA pushes #2 as their argument and then it's countered with #1 by P2P representatives. I'm pretty sure it's actually #3 that's scaring the industry.
The relationship between their protest therefore directly relates to the number of people disliking their music - louder you hear the artist or label whining the worse their music.
- "Until you can hear the difference on cheap gear, your argument doesn't apply to 99% of the music-listening market."
You are absolutely correct. Not everyone can afford -- or even cares -- about high end gear. I have no argument there.However...
There is a market for perceived quality. These are the people who buy "microcircuit cellphone boosters" (or whatever they're called today), "cellphone radiation shields," and are swayed by late-night infomercials. THIS is your market.
So, allow all MP3s of, say, 96 (64?) Kbit or less to be freely traded; in fact, flood the P2P networks with 'em! People will more readily redistribute them because they aren't a trick (like the repeating loops), and then (instead of spending all the money on lawyers), you advertise how much better the CDs sound.
Alternatively, without the willingness to embrace free distribution, it would behoove the music cartels to emphasize the quality point; perhaps from the angle of "make sure you get the best sound -- rip your own MP3s!" Make people not trust one another (they set a damn good (bad?)example), and make people want to have a 'trusted chain' -- know the source (CD), know the encoder, and then believe your MP3s sound (warmer | sweeter | more... whatever) than bootleg ones.
It's the Microsoft approach -- Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It preys on basic and well established human nature... it has worked before, why not bend it to a new use?
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
I wonder how much of the observed decline in sales of CDs and DVDs and other such media is not due to piracy, but simply the fact that it is now quite simple to exchange old records via eBay and similar places? I know also of DVD swapping circles, where you essentially buy one DVD with another DVD, you both go and watch them, and trade on. Those sales and "sales" are never recorded by recording companies. And they're almost certainly more common now than what they were a few years ago...
I always thought it was ironic that Metallica got popular for exactly the same reason that they were clamping down on Napster...bootlegging (not piracy...there is a difference). Metallica used to encourage their fans to record shows and pass tapes around, that's how bands with no radio play got notoriety. Live shows, touring and playing as much music as possible used to be the way to gain a name for yourself. Now, selling out to the highest bidder seems to be the way.
--trb
i sort of get a 'buyer beware' vibe off some of this. and thats what makes me test drive the stuff i like too listen to or use.
... such as when dvd games game out and nobody had the means of doing it or when games are cartrige based. they still wouldnt let you. they are just exercising their power.
:)
consumers should be able to buy what they expect, otherwise they should be able to return it fairly. if i buy a power tool and it just isnt up to snuff. i can easily return it. media such as music and games have a channel that prevents this. that same channel also tends to misrepresent or exagerate the products as well.
i would agree console game rentals offer a good deterent from piracy. that an the proliferation of demos and beta presents some good offerings.
you cannot return games at best buy (or simular) because 'they say so'. nothing more than that. when games are not duplicatable
its not like best buy is going to take back civilization 'play the world' just because the game isnt playable yet and its on the market.
agreed, boycotting is quite dead in this era. though i think its not a perceived option because of the market pressure and values people have.
perhaps ea sports upgrade insurence for madden football is needed?
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
First of all I want to point out the distinction between stealing and illegal copying. One of the two causes the owner to lose something. Please watch your language or we will misunderstand each other.
Furthermore, sharing music with friends is not illegal everywhere in the world. If I'm not mistaken, you can just give a copy of a CD to a friend in Norway (or was it one of the other scandinavian countries?). The fact that this practice happens to be illegal in the US today doesn't mean that we should all just agree. There are some very good reasons to allow this and I don't see it as particularly unethical. I believe that even with P2P there is enough money to be made, so why should we disallow sampling? Two arguments which are made by the RIAA are that:
- They might earn less and need that money to boost new artists.
- Artists will go broke when they P2P is not stopped.
Both arguments can be struck down by claiming that P2P is a very good way for (talented) artists to reach a larger audience and that it certainly doesn't hurt the financial status of the artists who aren't already rich and famous. The risk that it might perhaps, depending on whose figures you believe, have some small impact on the enormous income of popular artists seems to be a fairly small price to pay for the advantages that free (non-profit) file sharing brings. Remember that the protection of Intellectual Property is a man-made invention that is fairly young. The exchange of goods (later with the help of money) has been done since the dawn of time. At that time, nobody thought of protecting their drawings, words or inventions. The Bible was not protected by copyright and the wheel could be freely used. Only a few centuries ago the western world has created laws that give some extra rights to creators so they would create more works. The rights were never inalienable, our society grants them if we see them as being beneficial (assuming we have a well functioning democracy). There is no reason why society should spend it's resources to enforce a law which does more damage than good. IMHO the recent changes (DRM, DCMA, copyright extensions) are doing far more damage than good. Unfortunately it seems that most people are not educated well by the media (one requirement for a strong democracy), nor do most politicians listen to citizens (bribing politicians is legal in the US, strangely enough & there essentially is a weak two party system), so the laws are wrong and do substantial damage (and it is getting worse).
Going along with the RIAA/MPAA only means that my rights will be taken away. So, while it is sad for artists, I will not buy any of their stuff if the money will be used to oppress me. Call me a thief/pirate/terrorist if you want, but I _am_ willing to pay for a fair deal. A deal in which I am the consumer and the producer/distributor gives me what I want. Too bad that just doesn't happen. Most distributors want to treat me as a pirate. Ok, then I'll be one.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
If we are already paying for it, why more anti-piracy legislation?
Get the people who are SELLING copies!
I think the RIAA owes ME money for the CD-Rs that turned into coasters, backups, and frisbees.
Ironically, the RIAA assumes they have the copyright on everything. So if I buy CD-Rs to burn my own music on, I'm still paying them for the *privilege*.
Bah! All that BS about Metallica was uncalled for. Metallica was NOT complaining about fans bootlegging (hell, they *promoted* physical bootlegging). Their *complaint* was that if any company was going to base their business on a mechanism which was founded on copyright violation (Napster - face it), that THEY (Metallica) should at least have a SAY in what the content is, and how/when/if it is distributed (e.g., bad mixes getting released/leaked without their permission). They weren't against the FANS they were against some other arbitrary company making money off the relationship Metallica has built with fans, WITHOUT including Metallica somehow in the process.
Of course the whole Slashdot crowd burned poor Lars at the stake because of the perception he was against technology or against file sharing. If we ever need to go to war I'm sure the collective knee-jerks of Slashdot could pulverize any enemy!
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
You raise a good point, but the biggest difference between trading bootlegs and Napster is that with the bootlegs, fans are just trading with fans. In the case of Napster, someone was trying to get rich off of it. I think had Metallica stressed this aspect of it, they would have come off in a better light.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
"Well, Moby's 18 was lame, thanks to MP3 sharing, I could just avoid this expense. (I erased all since)."
I think that's what the RIAA is afraid of. Thanks to Mp3s, they have to treat their customers.. *GASP* FAIRLY!
It bugs the hell out of me that once I open a CD, I own it. That's it. I can't return it under the typical 'satisfaction guaranteed' policy that most other products enjoy.
By the RIAA's way, I have to make a purchasing decision from hearing 1-2 songs on an album I caught on the radio. In other words, I have no way of knowing (unless I want to invest way too much time into research...) if the CD has $15-$20 worth of interesting content on it.
P2P and MP3s really level the playing field. Now the RIAA has to treat me nice instead of fending me off with a stick. Too bad they're still trying the stick approach.
sort of, the Dead have never said "go ahead a bootleg our albums" what they said was "go ahead a record and share our live shows". Slight difference. One is stealing a product and the other is shareing an experiance. Oddly enough, the first major public BBS was run by the Whole Earth back in the early 80's and its primary use was for Deadheads to communicate and share tapes. Does that mean that the net has always been about p2p?
...I, like many people, have come to realize that it is simply wrong to ask that you be paid over and over again (ad nauseum) for the same 1 hour of work.
You're obviously not a professional software engineer, then, are you?
Piracy still is wrong. O'Reilley, in his essay, makes a clear distiction between piracy ( making an illegal copy of content for profit ) and sharing ( giving someone a copy for free ). Making copys of a CD and selling them in eBay is piracy, and already able to be prosecuted. Sharing files over kazaa is more like copying a tape for your friend, not illegal and not immoral. Piracy = bad, Sharing = good. Got it? He also states that there are real business opportunities for music publishers to participate in online sharing and make money from it. Wherever there is gobs of supply and gobs of demand someone has to bring the two together, regulate quality, etc. Sharing means free publicity and free distribution, which are costs usually incurred to reach the consumer. Plus people have consistently paid extra for the newer, prettier, hyped-up version of anything. Listen, we are consumers in a capitalist economy. We are not supposed to consume 'nicely' or 'morally' ( although that can be strong form of protest when enough people act together ) we are supposed to consume 'rationally' and coorporations are supposed to take advantage of that by offering us good products at a fair price at a convenient location. Consumers are using new channels to obtain music because the music industry is not offering them those things. Just because the music publishers are not acting quickly enough to gain my business online does not mean I should forsake my music listening. I spend a lot of time online and enjoy listening to new bands ive heard about. I dont feel morally obligated to buy the CD, but I often do because its still easier than spending time hunting down songs and ripping one myself. 'Morality' and 'major labels' do not even belong in the same sentence.
Hmmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
If morality is set by the community, then I suppose you have no problem with people getting their hands cut off for stealing, or women getting stoned to death because they were *accused* of adultery (whether or not they're actually guilty of the act) because in some community - THOSE are the standards.
And in those communities, they ARE acceptable and the right and MORAL thing to do. It sounds as if those morals conflict with yours.
The poster was trying to get this point across: some people have morals that conflict with others. Not everyone will agree with whats right and wrong.
Unmanipulated book buying is a myth.
As much as we'd all like to not judge a book by its cover, it's virtually the only recommendation that people have to go by when buying something. This isn't necessarily true of all cases, but for most fiction and hobby style books, is all that matters.
I worked in a bookstore for years before my current life, and spent some of that time interacting with publishers and reps. Any-time you run across an author you don't know, you trust 2 things, the rep (who has a vested interest in making you purchase the books) and the cover.
Why not judge books by their covers? It's way easier than reading the entire thing!