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Hollywood's Foundations Rest on Piracy

Posted by michael on from the duh dept.

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)?"

17 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Piracy helps. by lofoforabr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To some extent, piracy helps business. Do you think, for example, that MS would be where it is now was it not for piracy? Piracy is what brought Windows to +90% of all PCs.

    1. Re:Piracy helps. by laird · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It seems that everyone changes sides on the "piracy" debate depending on what's better for them personally. When the US was founded, all "IP" was rigidly controlled by Europeans, so the US had fairly loose patent and copyright laws, and it was common for US publishers to "pirate" European authors. And the companies that are now the media giants all got their starts retelling existing stories (e.g. Disney's retellings of every fable ever). Now that the US has lots of "IP" we believe in strong IP laws, completely contrary to those laid out when the country was founded, and the media companies advocate laws that would have made it impossible for them to have gotten their start.

      So when people say that they believe in "strong IP protection" I take it with a huge grain of salt, and append the phrase "because that makes me money." Not that making money is bad, but perhaps too cynically, I believe that if the same person who is attacking piracy in the US was in business in China instead, they'd be advocating piracy just as strongly.

      --
      Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
    2. Re:Piracy helps. by Draknor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How could California have different laws? We're talking about federal law here - Edison had patents on his invention and had a trust company to enforce it on the east coast. So the pirates moved to California (still under federal jurisdiction, but thousands of miles away from Edison) to operate, and by the time the "law" got there, the 17 year life on the patent had expired. Given that technology has come so far since them, it seems crazy to think such a thing would have worked, but communications was a little slower back then.

    3. Re:Piracy helps. by srmalloy · · Score: 5, Informative
      It seems that everyone changes sides on the "piracy" debate depending on what's better for them personally. When the US was founded, all "IP" was rigidly controlled by Europeans, so the US had fairly loose patent and copyright laws, and it was common for US publishers to "pirate" European authors.
      To view some of the reasoning behind this attitude, you can look at Thomas Jefferson's letter to Isaac McPherson in 1813:
      "It has been pretended by some (and in England especially) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when the relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is give late in the progress of society. It would be curious, then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening mine. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. When she made them like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices."
    4. Re:Piracy helps. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Forget the whole piracy angle for a second: nobody except the most viruent free loading scum is doing this because of the money, given that a DVD rents for about three or four bucks, and, as you point out, a good majority of movies aren't seen more than once. People with the wherewithal (fast computer, broadband, etc) to download 700+ megabytes have got four bucks to spend on their saturday night entertainment.

      It's about convenience: selecting a movie from the comfort of your own home and not having to worry about returning it afterwards. Give people a legal way to do this that fits into their price-sensitivity zone and they will eat out of your hand (DVD rental via mail is a good step, but you need to plan in advance, so points off). The irony is that once the framework to do this is in place, all this talk of piracy will just disappear, brushed under the carpet and replaced with adds for whatever solution gains approval.

      The MPAA will do just fine in the digital future. Blockbuster, on the other hand...

    5. Re:Piracy helps. by jamshid42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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....

      --
      /. - Proof that Sturgeon's Law is true...
    6. Re:Piracy helps. by StrongAxe · · Score: 5, Funny

      You don't watch the same movie for 12+ hours a day every day...

      You obviously don't have young children.

  2. Everything is stolen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why, the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached.

  3. Piracy? I can take care of it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll need three ships and fifty stout men. We'll sail around the Horn
    and return with spices and silks, the likes of which, ye have never seen!

  4. Piracy... by night_flyer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...
  5. The Cable Industry? by kevx45 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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
  6. Disney Pirates by MojoRilla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Disney is also a major pirate (besides Pirates of the Carribean). It is ironic that Disney lobbied to have the copyright lengths lengthened. Disney themselves made a mint by plundering the public domain (Snow White, Pinnochio, etc).

  7. To defeat them we must focus on basic rights by ShatteredDream · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!
  8. The Old Days... by valence · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  9. Message to all the mediums... by Shirov · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  10. Re:Quandry... by wings · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...the same people who made their fortune because a patent expired are trying to extend copyrights for generations!

    Of course! They're closing the 'loophole' to prevent anyone else from entering the market and competing!.
    Using monopoly power to maintain the monopoly.

  11. Such Utter Bullshit - My Rant by Didion+Sprague · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This back and forth about piracy and morality and P2P is such bullshit.

    Everyone -- yes, every goddamn one -- knows that the Hollywood/MPAA (and the RIAA music fight) boils down to one thing: money in the pockets of executives. That's it. It's only about technology insofar how that technology impacts the bottom-line. It's not about art. It's about making sure a select group of executives make sure they can keep the mortgage payments on their Bel-Air mansions and can keep memberships in their country clubs. That's it. That's where my, yours, and everyone else's dollars are going: to buy some titanium fucking Big Bertha golf club for the peabrained asshole who's been crowned king of the other peabrained assholes working beneath him.

    Valenti wants to make sure the cash keeps flowing into his pocket and into the pocket of every other overpaid, dim-bulb, "I can green-light this" executive motherfucker working the valley.

    You want goddamn immorality? It's the entertainment industry and the people that run it that are at the very foundations of the "immorality" of piracy. Forget Janet Jackson's nipple. Forget Powell's sudden decision to attempt to regulate *cable* television today (!). Forget the fact (and I'll digress here) that the fundamentalist assholes that have gone to see Mel Gibson's "Passion" claim that it's a fantastic movie yet in the same breath decry Janet Jackson's nipple, the state of marriage, and the violence in contemporary culture -- overlooking perhaps that the Passion is more "violent" than any number of Grand Theft Auto games strung together and more "explicit" than any svelt little nipple hiding behind a sun-shaped nipple medallion.

    The hypocrisy of Valenti and his immoral executive motherfuckers is astounding. It boggles the mind.