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Hollywood's Foundations Rest on Piracy
enrico_suave writes "Wired Magazine had an interesting perspective on how Hollywood has 'pirate' roots in its history, as well as radio, cable TV, and the music industry. Is P2P any different (except for the fact that the industry being replaced has much more money and political sway than ever before)?"
as the term for copyright theft was coined a long time ago...
1930s Newspaper advertisement
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
"Cable TV, too: When entrepreneurs first started installing cable in 1948, most refused to pay the networks for the content that they hijacked and delivered to their customers - even though they were basically selling access to otherwise free television broadcasts. Cable companies were thus Napsterizing broadcasters' content, but more egregiously than anything Napster ever did - Napster never charged for the content it enabled others to give away."
I know this a bit offtopic, but does anyone know a good site that could sort of present the whole history of the cable industry. I thought it didn't start up until the 1970's, but maybe I'm wrong. Have been before, will be again.
Thanks In Advance...
Kev
"Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky"-Pink Floyd
For a while I have been arguing that the debate should not be framed in the "innovator versus freeloader" view but in a "constitutional rights and individual property rights versus expansive intellectual property" view.
Most Americans do not accept the idea that you have a right to give away a copy of a song to anyone who wants it. While we hear constantly about those numbers that "40% of internet users said they saw nothing wrong with pirating music" we cannot go by that. Americans are just like any other people; when we think we can get away with something that doesn't seem to directly hurt someone we do it. Downloading bootlegs doesn't seem to hurt anyone, but it can.
If I had bootlegged the entire new Android Lust album instead of buying it on iTunes I would have not sent the chick behind AL any money. iTunes allowed me to send her maybe $2 for the album which I paid $10, probably a good $5 less than what I would have paid for a CD copy.
We need to stress to the government that iTunes, not more legislation, is the key to getting the system working. We need to show them that bands like Metallica refuse to do their part because they want an all or nothing. Buy 20-30 songs on iTunes and you give Apple more ammo to counter the claims that piracy has no solution. They can just shrug in front of Congress and say "it's not our side, the legal downloading side, that has dropped the ball. They refuse to let people buy their tracks one by one because they want them to buy them all or nothing."
There will always be politicians who will rail against piracy and ignore iTunes and other legal services, but many politicians will just look at these industries and say "the mechanisms are in place, why aren't you being a team player, why are you coming to us for help when there are companies dying to make the market work for you?" Politicans tend to be lazy, just look at how many Senate votes that John Kerry has missed in the past 12 years. Something like 1000 or more a year according to Fox News.
We can appeal to the public by pointing out the supremacy of the 1st amendment over Article I, Section 8, Clause 3. The first amendment was ratified later so it supercedes everything in the original constitution, just as all parts of the constitution must be read in the context of the Bill of Rights.
We should also point out how anti-backup provisions and attitudes like Jack Valenti's "if you want a backup, buy another copy" are against common sense, American tradition and capitalist principles. I have yet to read of a prominent capitalist theorist who would support the DMCA. Rand, Ricardo, Hayek and Smith are probably spinning in their graves over the DMCA and similar "seller protection legislation."
The hollywood position is built on pure, unprincipled greed. Defeating it only means that we need to be consistant and show the public where the law is going to start biting them in the ass if they don't care now.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
One thing that this article doesn't touch on is that early Hollywood (and radio) was filled with people copying each other's works, and in a lot of cases the result of copying and reworking old material resulted in a richer cultural landscape than would have otherwise occurred.
Look at how many classic songs of the 30s, 40s and 50s there are whose canonical popular version wasn't the original, or even created with the approval of the original artist. Similarly, what a loss to cinema it would have been if Stoker's estate had been able to crush Nosferatu with lawsuits... if nothing else, we would never have had Shadow of the Vampire. Most people don't listen to Fred Astaire's old singing, but everyone knows Taco. And the Pet Shop Boys' "It's a Sin" was originally an Elvis track. That's not saying that Taco and the Pet Shop Boys didn't get the rights first (I have no idea), but that it's that kind of thing that has resulted in a richer world.
Change with the times! Hollywood must find a way to use technology to make money. Otherwise, they will spend more than ever lost on piracy try to protect their outdated business models. Same for the music industry... Digital formats are here to stay, so find a way to alter the model and keep on making your money!
I guess the problem with the above suggestion is that there are a few people at the top that may lose a fraction of their power... Too bad they are will to risk millions, and piss of the customer base over a pride issue...
--Ryan
I think that a lot of this "piracy" business that the MPAA and RIAA is a load of crap. For example, one of the loudest voices against Napster (before the became "legit") was Metallica. In one of the tape inserts for one of their albums (I forget which one), they claim outright that they used to trade tapes back and forth and copy them all the time before they made it big. So, it is OK when they commited piracy, but it isn't now when they are a target of it?
I'm glad their last album sucked....