Slashdot Mirror
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
But I agree with your comment.
Here's a quote from David Bowie
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Someone who actually understands that other causes, like shoplifting, cost the MPAA/RIAA more money than pirating.
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
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*
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.
Which is why I like shoplifting better than piracy, since I have a 56k and all..
Never underestimate the bandwidth of Raiders jacket stuffed full of CDs.
screw those music companies if they are going to rip someone off for another cd with only one good song on it. simularly another cd with just a different cover or maybe a 'bonus' song on it. how many $15 disks did i buy that i didnt want once i listened to the damn thing? are there tracks i never finished? sure. nothing i can do about it either
... a nice box or animation on tv isnt enough to make me happy if the game is lame or behind by five years. especially in this world where nobody takes back returned games.
same thing with games as well
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
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
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
The Grateful Dead let fans copy and swap recordings as much as they like. In terms of both popularity and money, they were quite successful. Being heard is the essence of music performace and builds your fan base. The larger the better/profitable.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
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."
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.
Robin Hood wasn't real; it's a legend.
Right, the legend of a character we view as being "heroic". What's your point?
Morals are not "set by the population".
Then, how are they set? Why do different nations, states, cities and communities have differing morals? Sounds to me that while it isn't necessarily spoken, the morality is set by the community (or, the population).
Taxes have nothing to do with theft.
They're taking my money without my consent. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right.
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.
I was having a party and wanted to get some new
.25 to .50 per song. I wanted them right away, I wanted a big selection, I didn't want to have CD's to change and purchase and discard the packaging.
music for it the day before. I used Kazaa to
search and download some christmas songs by
Louis Armstrong, other older Jazz and Barrelhouse artists, and some contemporary ones.
I would have been happy to pay around
I would love to put money in the hands of the artists directly. I contribute to web sites such as dyndns.org , eff, granitecanyon, etc, that provide services, even though it is not required.
I think the music publishing industry are a bunch of thugs and parasites, by and large, and they have been crushing the smaller and independent
studios and artists, while calling the public thieves and pirates. They are now petitioning congress to install monitoring in all of our computing equipment.
People, this HAS TO STOP. Right now we fight back
through the EFF, and other public interest groups. Give them money and take the time to write to your congress people, before you are thrown in jail by the record companies.