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Doctorow on DRM and Activism
Might E. Mouse writes "Cory Doctorow, co-editor of 'the world's most linked-to' blog, BoingBoing, spoke recently at an event in London, UK. Afterwords, he gave an interview with bit-tech discussing topics like DRM and the commercialization of podcasting. He was particularly scathing towards the BBC. From the article: 'If you're in the UK, hold the BBC to account. Why is it shipping the IMP, a DRM crippled player? Is there a point in the future where the BBC imagines that bits are going to get harder to copy? And that the IMP will solve its problem? Really, what the BBC is saying is that there's two ways you can get its content after it airs on the TV; one is that you can get it through the IMP and have a crippled experience, the other is that you can be a criminal.'"
Cory's only interested in the latest episode of The IT Crowd.
Back in '04 Cory Doctorow gave an interesting speech about DRM to the Microsoft Research department. He released it into the public domain, so share it with your friends (and DRM enemies).
Developers: We can use your help.
No social problem ever had a technical solution. Not a single one. You can use netnanny to keep your kids from watching "bad" pages, but the kid will eventually find a way around. You can copy protect your content, but your user will sooner or later find a way around it.
The problem is not that we enjoy being criminals. We don't do that out of spite. Not even because "content must be free" or similar rubbish. It's simply that we're used to listening to our music where we want, recording our favorite movies to watch them later, using our computers for the games we want to play, reading the news we want to read. That's what we want to do, that's what we enjoy doing.
And if you turn this ability off, people will develop a way to do it regardless.
Why was there a big outcry when CSS went onto Linux? Not because the CSS "encryption" was broken, but because the country codes were stripped together with it. And why were they stripped? Because we have no benefit from then, we don't want them, we don't need them, actually they did what we did NOT want to be done, so they were gone before they were implemented!
Face it. People will do what they want to do. The question whether they will buy or copy content can only be answered by its price. Make it affordable, make the value match the price and people will rather buy than copy. Whether it's copy protected or not will only decide whether you piss off the buying customer and create another copyer, not whether you will sell or not.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does Open Source DRM make sense?
http://authena.org/
http://22surf.org/
Should not creators be given a right to choose?
Or use a VHS recorder. Or buy a DVD. Or use a DVD recorder. These all work for me.
From TFA: Even if you leave aside all the copyright issues, the outcome of the scenario that's really bad is that it breaks the most important communication tool we've ever devised in order to protect the tiny, unimportant, cushy racketeering business model of the content industry. You know, screw them, if it's a choice between putting everyone in Hollywood out of work - not that this would do that, but if that was in fact the outcome, which the industry says it would be - and if it's a choice between that and eliminating all freedom of information, due process and privacy rights in electronic communication, then 'Goodbye Hollywood', it's a no-brainer.
Hear, hear! And I think the last movie out of Hollywood should be called 'Goodbye, Hollywood' (tagline: 'Freedom, it's a no-brainer.') out of respect for Mr. Doctorow's prescient vision.
The Big News Page
I just click here and upload this and click here and badda bing badda bang, Boing Boing now is hosting 'illegal pirated content' right in this foobs personal directory. ... ... ...
The next day...
(unsure about channel names; American here.)
Welcome to G4!
Welcome to CNN live from America!
Welcome to BBC2!
Welcome to BBC!
As we can see, the only people who have a objection to Digital Rights Management often have something to lose when a secure and stable solution such as BBC's IMP player are released to the market. The average consumer has no worry to be concerned about Digital Rights Management: The average pirate, who steals money the PEOPLE who make the great movies and television shows, does.
Thank you.
Right on.
"Doctorow on DRM and Activism"
Odd. I just had this image in my head of Christopher Eccleston using a sonic screwdriver on his DVD player. I really need to stop reading Slashdot before my first cup of coffee.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, the market isn't giving us what we want, so we will get it "illegally" anyway.
For instance, the entertainment industry could be making money off of me if I could download high-quality DRM-free TV shows at the same time they are released on TV. But, there isn't anything close to something like this being offered, so I go on BitTorrent because the stuff is there. It isn't because I am a cheapskate, but because this is the only place I can get what I want. Almost none of us give a shit if it is legal or not.
Since we've paid for these shows (through the licence fee), is there any ethical reason that we shouldn't download them from the internet?
So true. I use one of those streaming music services. They have hit the price-point that works for me. For $8 per month, I get access to their library of music, which is something like 1 million songs (I don't know, actually). Yes, I don't get to "own" this music, but I don't really care that much, since the price is pretty negligable. I never buy CDs anymore. I used to buy several CDs per month at about $15/pop, listen to them a few times each, then shelve them. Now, I am spending a fifth of that, and I have more music at my fingertips. This model doesn't necessarily fit everyone's lifestyle, but it works for me.
Technically, I can "steal" as much music as I like from the service by re-digitizing the stream once it gets to the analog phase. But, it is kind of a pain to do, so I rarely bother with it. Like the parent said, make it affordable, and I won't bother circumventing the system.
bother with this type of stuff. Last I checked they were funded not through ads and payment for media? Sure they want to protect the copyright, but honetstly, they wont lose any money if people do copy (hell it lightens the load for them)
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
put DRM on them!!!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
No social problem ever had a technical solution. Not a single one.
I don't know, man. Birth control has really helped me sidestep a few social problems.
When the BBC does own the complete rights, it seems to give it away pretty freely for non-commercial use. Examples include the MP3 of Beethoven that BBC Radio 3 gave away; and the BBCs Creative Archive
It is unfortunate that DRM is a part of the BBCs world, but the option would be to not provide content at all. Additionally some of the UK media would whip up a frenzy -- "UK licence payers foot the bill for worldwide quality internet TV". This comes about because of the disconnect between the UK licencing system and the World Wide Web.
DRM - Against it.
Activism - For it.
I recently listened to a talk Cory gave. He discussed that the reason he started releasing his books via CreativeCommons was because of the whole Digial-Book fiasco. Where authors were attacking fans of their work who were either hacking the digital version to use in other means, or digitally copying the books.
.5% are people downloading his books, and not paying for them.
He sums up his p.o.v., which I think every artist, be it writer or musician, or Spam carver should listen to before using DRM in their content. His greatest problem as an artist is not piracy, it's obscurity. 99.5% of all the people who never buy his books are doing so because they don't know about his work. The other
The important step is forming a relationship with your readers, then they are more likely to follow your work, and more likely to purchase your products.
It might have been Tim O'Reilly who had said the obscurity quote, but regardless of who says it, more people need to hear it.
People (if we geeks can be called that) will always get rid of the copy protections, because they really don't protect anything. They are just inconviences.
Do I want to have a CD in my drive to play a video game? No.
Do I want to need a stupid CD in my drive to play my music? No, then I can only listen to one band at a time.
Do I want to pay $20 for a piece of plastic? No! This is perhaps the worst DRM to someone still in school with no job.
My karma makes buddha cry.
This is a trial. There is no Mac/Linux version so the BBC will never be able to go down this route permanently (since their remit won't allow any license fee payers to be excluded). They're not trialling the player so much as trialling the streaming technology and the viability of delivering the content over the Internet.
As for whether it's DRMd, well if the DRM locks the content to license fee paying UK residents then I see nothing wrong with that.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Also, Xena isn't hot, not one bit. http://www.xeni.net/images/headshots/101-0134_IMG. jpg
BARF!
There most certainly are technical solutions to a social problems!
...is pretty simple minded. The same can be said of any sort of security system, from a hardened firewall, to front door locks, to passports or any other system we've set up to regulate how things work and at least slow down people who are trying to steal or commit whatever crime.
Locks and car alarms are "good enough" solutions to prevent vehicle theft. Are they fool proof? Of course not. Am I inconvenienced by having to carry around keys and remember to lock/unlock doors? Yes. But I prefer not to have bums sleeping in my car, or people yanking anything in view simply because they can without any effort. And yes, I've had my car broken into (security defeated). It makes me want to find ways to make things more secured, not less.
I've also had people steal the spark plugs off my motorcycle (for use as a crack pipe) more than once. I can't really lock them down. Sometimes social problems are too great to be able to protect yourself from (I can't really afford/don't care to park my bike in a locked up garage all the time), and you take an occasional loss. Other times, you can take some reasonable precautions to secure your stuff.
Referring to DRM as a failure because:
a) some implementations are retarded, excessively restrictive, or unfair
b) most any DRM can be gotten around
In other threads under this story, you'll find a lot of rah-rah talk about what a good idea "no DRM" is, but imagine if your server, home, checkbook, or identity records lacked any attempt at security, simply because "no security is absolute."
Cory sounds like he's 14. All his moral outrage comes from wanting to watch TV without paying for it, so it's hard to sympathize with his shrill, juvenile rants.
I'm sure boingboing used to be good...
BRRT, wrong answer. At best, Boing Boing was one part self-important moaning, one part grade school level sci-fi writing, and a dash of faggotry (season to taste).
You don't need a huge studio to have access to good movie making equipment. Sure, we won't have huge explosions and flashy f/x, but then again, we might just have a story so we don't need that junk to keep the audience awake.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And I can very well envision the scheme that they will charge networks who don't comply with DRM mechanisms a LOT more money. If they get to show the "good" movies at all if they don't agree to weave some strong DRM into the stream.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I do agree with the inconvenience part, but then again I do not agree with that last part. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. It's not like anyone's life depends on having the latest song from some overhyped whistle buoy.
On the other hand, artists do depend on getting at least some money for their work. Yes, I know, the artist is the other one ripped off in the music biz, but there are actually a few independent artists. And those people deserve getting money for their work.
Funny enough, those are also the CDs that have no DRM and go for less than 15 bucks usually... And usually, it's also the "better" music.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
At least the BBC actually make their content downloadable. How many of the worlds other major TV operators/content producers actually make their content avaiable in any form?
...which is to say that as long as Cory Doctorow keeps buying a round at the quarterly new media circle jerk conferences he'll continue to get headline press-on-demand in the 'blogosphere.' Remember, it doesn't matter whether your 'art' is DRM'd up the yin-yang or a plaintext file, if a non-story with a link to your site doesn't periodically make it to the front page of slashdot, ain't nobody gonna know about it anyhow.
Marketing sells. Always has. Cory has carefully nurtured a successful 'edgy-cyber-iconoclast' niche, and more power to him, but let's not get all noble and philosophical about it...
You can watch it in the UK by paying your TV license.
Or you can pay for it some other way.
The DRM in IMP is aimed at stopping people from outside the UK getting their hands on content funded by UK license payers' money, with out paying anything.
-- I like the cut of your thinking, young man. - me.
DRM is such a waste of money and time for everyone. The current business models for CDs and Movies can't be hurting that much, as they can still afford to pay these individual actors/acresses millions for a single film, and make a profit. Maybe they should try the alley of not paying the performers quite so much. Not everyone in the entertainment industry needs to be a millionaire. I hate watching an artist on T.V. bitching about how piracy hurts the industry, then they get in their Bentley or Ferrari with their Rolex and 4 million dollar engagement ring and drive off. Obviously they are hurt by this industry.
What hurts is the unwillingness of those who have their hands in the honey pot at the top to reinvest in small time artists.
DRM is just a way for lawyers and a few more executives to get their hands deeper in the honey pot. Imagine how much money has been spent on legal issues that revolve just around this issue, both on the corporate side and consumer side.
Cheesy Movie Night
I've seen Cory talk at a few forums/conference and while espousing the virtues of free software and damning DRM he never seems to be able to answer a question from the floor about how he can justify giving money to Apple, a pro DRM company in a ready position to radically monopolise our rights to the music we buy and listen to.
He will however suggest economic boycott of any other company that does support and invest in restricting the rights of users. He just doesn't seem prepared to see that every time he gets up on stage with his Powerbook and in casual chat, espousing the joys of iTunes, he's contradicting his own ethics.
Many questions came from the floor and in forums after a talk he gave in Spain that he was not able to answer to this end. In one forum he claimed that OSX was an open-source OS and he considers himself a BSD user. IMO Cory can be a bit of a margin fudger at times.
I think it was brave of Doctorow to say he found Ricky Gervais extremely entertaining. Gervais has been hugely oversold and cannot hold a candle to real comic greats, from Keaton to Sellars, Cook or Cleese. Truth to tell, Gervais really isn't very funny at all.
Second, Doctorow's views on the BBC and DRM are very oversimplified. The BBC buys in many of its programs, but it buys only the right to broadcast them in its territories not the right to distribute them for free world-wide. Second, the BBC reasonably expects to make money, sometimes a great deal of money, from selling successful programs abroad and in the form of all kinds of subsidiary rights. Clearly that after-market would abruptly cease if open streams were avaliable on the net. With it would cease quite a lot of jobs and the licence fee would probably go up.
I don't like DRM either, but the BBC isn't the right place to start reforming the West's foobared intellectual property system. On the whole the BBC is a force for good, which I doubt could be said of many US media moguls with their porno factories and shady deals with Chinese state bully boys.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
The BBC doesn't give a stuff about DRM. Apple doesn't give a stuff about DRM. The only thing anybody cares about is getting the legal agreement to distribute material from its owners.
If getting that agreement means having DRM, then they add DRM.
Whining at the BBC or iTMS gets you nothing, unless you're Doctorow, in which case whining at the wrong entity gives you the warm fuzzies even though you're hopelessly wrong.
The Beeb's only other option is to not get the agreements, and not distribute the material, and possibly just watch someone else get the agreements and do it instead. What's in it for the BBC or Apple? Nothing.
But Doctorow's a cock, so he bleats endlessly about purity by bashing companies and organisations who are just as involuntarily saddled with DRM as we are. Instead of whining about the people who force them into it (performance rightsholders). If he did the latter it'd be no less pointless but at least he'd be whining at the right people. But, as I say, he's a cock and just whining aimlessly is enough for him.
[Why on earth the EFF wants a cheerleader who articulates this stuff so poorly is beyond me. Certainly it makes me much less likely to give the EFF money - they're clearly wasting what they already have.]
That is the crux of the problem with content: Users do not buy content, they buy a license to use it. Arguing otherwise is simplistic and disingenuous. Arguing "against DRM" is also problematic, because it is an untenable position.
If you were right, and we all "owned" every bit of IP we obtained on CDs, DVDs, and whatever else, then yes, DRM would just be a hinderance. DRM (quite obviously) is supposed to protect [content makers] from [users who are trying to rip it off].
Trying to treat IP "content" as a "real good" is a silly because there are no "real goods" that we can duplicate at no cost and then mass distribute an infinite number of flawless reproductions instantly, across the planet. If we had the capacity to do anything like that for cars, houses or other real property, then the business model for producing those real goods would instantly vanish.
If you fail to see the need for DRM, you can't be taken very seriously. The issue isn't "whether DRM is going to exist," but rather "how can we ensure user's fair use rights be protected?"
Anyone talking about how DRM is going to go away because there will "always be holes in DRM" is an idiot, and that kind of rhetoric is really counter productive in trying to ensure that customers a generation from now have a similar set of freedoms in using content as those we have come to expect with VCRs, CD/MP3s, etc.
"No-DRM" speeches are as counter productive as the "No-Nukes" protests of the 70-80s, where a clean, future potential for properly engineered energy policy was destroyed by ignorant people caught up in a semantic rah-rah fest. Instead, we got several generations of dirty power plants that are far more dangerous to the environment and society, and an uncertain future.
By driving all your energy "against DRM", you confuse the real issue, and will likely ensure that we will get something far worse than a "reasonable compromise on DRM that provides for fair use."
Stupid people fuck everything up.
Parent is insightful in that the dialogue should be directed at how DRM is implemented and how users can be made aware of the asymmetrical 'bargain' they're entering into, rather than plastering an "EVIL!!1" label on the technology as a whole.
In the end, stamping out DRM is going to be about as easy as ridding society of guns, alcohol, petroleum, and pornography. Education is the correct response, not mindless totemism.
you are giving the car manufactures bad ideas....
For the podcast of Xeni reading the Finnish translation of the talk on NPR mashed up with the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song.
that car locks, firewalls, apartment doors and alarms offer ME some service. They protect ME from someone wanting to steal from me. And rightfully so. Nobody but me has the right to use my property, for any kind of reason. I can borrow my car to a friend, if I choose so. For money, or for free. But when I do so, I hand over my property fully. There is no shackles that tie him to the pedals so he won't let Bobby Joe drive (even if I explicitly forbid him to give the car to Bobby Joe 'cause I don't like him).
Yes, we won't be friends anymore when I find out that he does. But I can not and do not want to force this kind of "DRM" on him. I trust him to not abuse my car as much as he trusts me to give him a car with working breaks.
DRM is a completely different matter. DRM does me no service at all. It does not offer anything of value to me, the paying customer. It is only an annoyance to me.
Would I even think of removing the locks from my car and hotwire it 'cause it's an inconvenience to carry those keys around? Of course not! Those keys protect my property! Yes, DRM also protects the property of the content provider. But unlike with me, my car and the bum (compared to the content provider, the content and me), the bum has NO right to use my car in whatever way. He did not pay for using it. I did pay to use the content.
So I don't really consider the analogy too fitting.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I agree with some of your points, and my language wasn't clear. I'm not against DRM period. I'm against DRM that prevents users from doing "reasonable" things with content that they are licensed to use. Restrictive license agreements are BS.
People who bought an early HDTV with only composite inputs should not be prevented from getting a full HD signal when watching their (to be released) HD-DVDs or BlueRay discs.
People who buy a CD should not be prevented from ripping it to their portable music player, computer, or using custom or COTS network media player software/hardware.
DRM needs to work for the consumer first and the content owner second.
Also, if content owners to go the "you aren't buying the content, you're buying a license to use the content" route then I want cheap and easy replacement (for cost + shipping) of the physical media when it is destroyed, lost, or damaged. The current "go out and buy a new license at full price to get another physical copy" model is crap.
Shouldn't matter, because "no copy-protection scheme is foolproof"* and "information wants to be free,"** not to mention "the internet changes everything"*** and "economics as we know it is obsolete."**** Did I get that right, you foul-smelling hippie Slashtard?
* Hint: Adequate doesn't imply foolproof.
** No, it doesn't.
*** No, it didn't.
**** You're fucking retarded--you and your ilk--and you'll find your Stallmanesque, Dorito-studded beard isn't quite as attractive to ladies in real life as you'd think to judge by the babe parade on your flickering CRT, once you finally get around to sponging that crusty exoskeleton of what used to be semen off your flesh and leaving your basement shrine to Napoleon Dynamite, which you probably misspell as "Napolean." Any day now.
This is my problem with artists -- they squeal like stuck pigs about the need for DRM, and yet they don't understand what it really implies... what the end result of DRM and technology being used to police each and every bit of digital data is going to be. I don't know whether it is ignorance, or whether they/you really imagine that DRM will usher in a paradise of copyright enforcement.
To suggest that the entire world's computer systems should be crippled to ensure that DRM is enforced is madness... and yet that's what technology companies are trying to do now. It's an example of the tail (copyright) wagging the dog (society)... people like you who try to muddy the real argument with crap about IP not being "real goods" and therefore deserving of extra protections are simply "useful idiots" to the big copyright barons.
Stupid people fuck everything up.
I'll say... DRM never was and never will be about piracy. These companies (Microsoft, IBM, Apple, the MPAA, RIAA) know very well that piracy will never be stopped completely. All they want is to get their legal fingers of control into every device... to extract money from those making the devices, and extract extra money from those who can't be bothered circumventing restrictions.
"Many questions came from the floor and in forums after a talk he gave in Spain that he was not able to answer to this end. In one forum he claimed that OSX was an open-source OS and he considers himself a BSD user. IMO Cory can be a bit of a margin fudger at times."
I attended, what you say bears no relationship to the talk Cory gave or the questions he was asked.
Grade A bullplop.
Your wisdom just silenced me.
Reread the post. Nowhere does it mention any of the phrases you quoted. In fact, it fails to say that DRM should be abolished. I think most sane people realize that DRM is a required part of digital media.
However, the license agreements that DRM enforces must be balanced, fair, and clearly spelled out to the consumer. The DRM must be flexible enough to allow the consumer to have "reasonably free" use of the content that they have licensed. The content producers must not own all the control while the content consumers have none.
DRM raises some very complex questions with no clear answers, even for hardware and content producers. For an excellent example, read the following engadget article on the consequences of HDCP. Both the consumer and the manufacturer of the "cracked" hardware will lose.
We may continue to see the resurgance of "performance art" in the flesh, whether concerts or plays or clubs, as the young, good, inventive artists see their value higher than ever, and sell non-drm'd CDs after the performance.
OMG! It costs the BBC extra when people who would never pay for the shows (in fact, CANNOT pay for the shows) pirate them? Won't somebody think of the children?
You're absolutely right it's a social problem. And there's even a social solution! Content distributors could use the same tactics as anti-drug organizations. Make "pirates" look like pathetic losers. Have a multi-million dollar "just say no to copying!" ad campaign.
What's that? They've already tried that? Hmmmm. Oh well. Hey, where'd I put my joint?
Doctorow actually came to visit my school and give a talk on DRM and the future. He's a really great speaker (I got a little excited), and if you get a chance to see him or talk to him you should definitely take it.
___ alwaysBETA.com - Hey, you've got nothing better to do.
That is the crux of the problem with content: Users do not buy content, they buy a license to use it. Arguing otherwise is simplistic and disingenuous.
Except that things are advertised with the likes of "own it on DVD". Rather than "Buy some rights to watch it in ways acceptable to us on DVD". The media (including some proprietary software) companies want to be able to sell a mass market product whilst at the same time having a contract which restricts what the customer can and can't do with the product. (Without customers being able to renegotiate that contract.) Effectivly they want to "have their cake and eat it".
Trying to treat IP "content" as a "real good" is a silly because there are no "real goods" that we can duplicate at no cost and then mass distribute an infinite number of flawless reproductions instantly, across the planet.
Whereas a couple of centuries it was possible to support this fiction, because any content was tighly bound to a physical piece of media.
If we had the capacity to do anything like that for cars, houses or other real property, then the business model for producing those real goods would instantly vanish.
These business models wouldn't vanish entirely. But would be shrink to only cover the custom/luxury markets. Effectivly physical artifacts would become like software, costs money to create/modify a design, but after that copies are free.
I've also had people steal the spark plugs off my motorcycle (for use as a crack pipe)
Where are you getting this stuff? This is hilarious!
Dude...people steal your sparkplugs cos they want to wind you up. And it works.
The question whether they will buy or copy content can only be answered by its price. Make it affordable, make the value match the price and people will rather buy than copy.
This doesn't make any sense. Copying digital content will always be free, and thus impossible to compete with in terms of price alone. This is why copyright exists in the first place. The only ways to make copying something "more expensive", and thus give the content creators the ability to compete are to make it artificially difficult (watermarks, DRM) it to make it illegal.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
It isn't because I am a cheapskate, but because this is the only place I can get what I want.
No, you're cheap. You say BitTorrent is the only place you can get high-quality DRM-free TV shows, but then where did they come from? Somewhere down the line, someone paid for what you are now stealing. Why aren't you paying for it? Because it's cheaper to invent a justification than to actually buy or not buy what is offered. It's a convenient position. No matter what is for sale, you can always raise your expectations without spending a cent.
You can talk all you want about how much money you would be spending, but it will always be cheaper for you to claim that you have a right to steal because your demand isn't being met.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
His greatest problem as an artist is not piracy, it's obscurity...
Indeed, and perhaps that's because he's not a very successful author. His own creative work may not sell especially well on its own merits. Which may explain why he personally goes to some lengths to get publicity -- any publicity -- by saying provocative things that are sure to get headlines somewhere, or giving speeches and taking stands that try to tap into some kind of broad-based social discontent (like that of people unhappy with the RIAA attack on music file exchange).
But other authors are successful, and their major problem would be piracy, if downloading work was more or less a one-click process. Danielle Steele (ugh), John Grisham, Tony Hillerman and so on are likely to have a very different perception of the "biggest problem" facing an artist than Cory Doctorow, if millions of net-nonsavvy readers could just navigate to www.getcherbestsellerhere.com and with one click grab their latest book for free.
To be sure, there are pretty much by definition far more mediocre artists than superb artists, so any random poll of authors will always find a majority in favor of mo' publicity rather than better control of the fruits of their creative labor. I'd guess it's only the young authors who are confident of becoming best-selling authors sooner or later who want to hedge their bets a little, so to speak, by making sure that when they become so successful that millions wait excitedly to read their next work, then they can control how and when that work is distributed -- so that, among other things, they can be sure it's used as they'd wish it to be and they can reap an appropriate reward.
Listening to the passion with which Cory Doctorow opines on these subjects gives me pause: after all, it's common that those most anxious to share the wealth are those who contribute least to its creation. You know? It's like the guy who very much wants to split the dinner check equally is always the one who ordered lobster, fois gras, triple-chocolate surprize and a magnum of champagne, not the guy who ordered the plain salad and glass of tap water.
Let's get one thing straight here. Downloading TV shows isn't "stealing". Is there a stack of TV shows that gets smaller when I download them? Furthermore, if I couldn't download the TV shows, I still wouldn't pay for cable.
And nowhere did I say I had a "right" to download TV shows.
You must enjoy very much getting to know people intimately based on a couple of paragraphs in a slashdot thread. Because evidently, you know my motivations behind everything.
Cory Doctorow came to Olin College a couple of weeks ago. I wrote up a short summary of his talk. The take-home message I personally got from his talk was that the biggest danger comes when DRM creeps into hardware, preventing kids from being able to tinker with technology and learn about it when their minds are most open. Here is the abstract of his talk which was entitled "0wned -- how Hollywood plans on making the future subservient on the past" .
I design user interfaces for a free network management application,
If you fail to see the need for DRM, you can't be taken very seriously.
Record lables make billions selling completely unprotected CDs, and Hollywood makes billions selling DVDs with trivially defeatable CSS. When they say they won't release content without "unbreakable" DRM, they're lying. And even if they weren't, Cory is absolutely right in that *if* we have to choose between computing freedom and the entertainment industry's business models, it should be a no-brainer.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I suspect one issue is simply that the BBC don't have GLOBAL rights to programs they broadcast, only UK ones, and therefore have to be seen to be making an effort to restrict viewing to territories in which they are allowed to broadcast. There's also the fact that it can't SELL programs (directly anyway - it can resell via DVD). For UK viewers this service is 'free' because they've already paid. It's easy to break anyway.
'Capitalists of the world, unite! Oh
He talked about DRM, the broadcast flag, then he was reminded the talk was to be about giving his books away for free and he talked about that. Then the QA session was fanboy stuff, there was very few questions and in some cases he switched to English to explain the legal detail.
You're asking me to ignore my own first hand knowledge of that talk he gave.
Let's get one thing straight here. Downloading TV shows isn't "stealing". Is there a stack of TV shows that gets smaller when I download them?
No, and you're being obtuse to act as though that's what is meant. If you yourself acknowledge that it's illegal, I don't understand why you should chafe at my characterization of it as "stealing". Is there some other term you would prefer? Is "intellectual property theft" to contentious? Or how about simply "copyright violation"?
Furthermore, if I couldn't download the TV shows, I still wouldn't pay for cable.
And? You wouldn't have television at all, so what? All you're saying is that you don't want what is for sale. This doesn't give you any more right to obtain it for free. Have you never had to go without something you wanted?
Imagine for a moment that there were television downloads to your exact specifications available, but at a price, (say) ten times as high as the lower quality DRMed shows on iTunes today. So, $20 a show.
What would you do? BitTorrent would no longer be the only place you can get what you want. You'd get exactly the same content. The only difference would be whether or not you're willing to pay the price, and I hope that it's blindingly obvious that not paying would be screwing the creator.
Now, I also hope it's obvious that $20 is too damn much for a single episode of a TV show. So they give you some cheaper options: $10 for your choice of a low quality version with no DRM or a high-quality version with DRM. Hrm. That's not what you wanted. How about this: $5 for high quality and no DRM...but it's released six months after the air date. No, that won't do. How about...
Repeat ad infinitum.
Sooner or later, you'd have to accept that what you want is not for sale. Your options then are to change your estimation of value or do without. My point in the last comment is that what you're doing is a convenient way of ignoring this. You neither have to lower your expectations (and indeed, can raise them indefinitely) nor do without. As long as you're unconcerned with the legality of piracy, your claim that the entertainment industry could be making money off of you is empty, as they can't offer anything more to you than what you are already getting for free.
And nowhere did I say I had a "right" to download TV shows.
You didn't, I admit. However, I don't think it's such a far out inference as you seem unconcerned with the legality of what you're doing. Perhaps it would be better described as a "sense of entitlement".
You must enjoy very much getting to know people intimately based on a couple of paragraphs in a slashdot thread. Because evidently, you know my motivations behind everything.
You're mistaken. I only claim to know that you're using the exact arguments that have been wrong for several years now, and so any "you" in the preceding comment should be taken as a general "you". Likewise where the "right to download" is concerned -- you may not feel that way, but many others who share your argument do.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
You are so wrong it isn't even funny. Copyright exists to promote the creation of new art. Anything else is an unwanted side effect. As for competing with free, look up the business case for selling bottled water. On a free market, people will pay whatever a good is worth to them. This "free market" I speak of can not be regulated by state-imposed monopolies like copyrights, or for that matter, patents because it then ceases to be free.
Immaterial values can not be treated like physical goods and it's about time we stopped trying.
Best summary. Evar.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Make it cheap. Say, a DVD costs like 5 bucks, can you see this statement coming?
"Soooo, you spent like what, 2 days, to crack open the DRM of that DVD? Greeeat job now, man, you just managed to save 5 bucks in 2 days. Man, you outta get another job if that's worth it for you!"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Free" isn't, if you have to spend a lot of time to get "free" free.
Time is the most valuable resource a human has. Simply because he cannot multiply it. No matter what you do, after you've done it you have less time (lifetime) left than when you started.
If you can get something for a handful of greenbacks that you'd have to spend lots of time to get it for "free", most people will prefer the greenback variant. They don't want to spend their time, simply put, if it takes an hour to get something for "free", just go to work and spend that hour there, unless you have a "paper or plastic" job you're invariably better off that way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Copyright exists to promote the creation of new art.
Um, yeah. And how does it do that? By granting the creator exclusive rights over his creation. You can't rely on the difficulty of copying the medium to protect the content. That would be saying that it's ok for anybody with a printing press to copy your book. Now, it's well and good if you the creator say it's ok, but the point is that you are given that right as the creator. Without that right, you would quickly be undercut by competitors and have little chance to profit from your work, and thus little incentive to create more. Such piracy is only limited by the cost to copy (i.e. you still have to own a printing press), but that is zero for digital media. Even so, the grandparent post was suggesting that digital piracy could be defeated by lowering prices, which is obviously untrue. The only way to allow the original creator to compete is to make it effectively "more expensive" (i.e. difficult) for the pirate through artificial restrictions such as copyright. Copyright makes it possible to compete with free. QED.
As for competing with free, look up the business case for selling bottled water.
That's a terrible example. Bottled water is all about differentiation and branding and creating the illusion that one water is markedly different from the other. This is nothing like what I was talking about: a scenario in which the product is openly exactly the same, but where the only difference in price. In that scenario, cheaper (free) is always going to be more attractive.
On a free market, people will pay whatever a good is worth to them. This "free market" I speak of can not be regulated by state-imposed monopolies like copyrights, or for that matter, patents because it then ceases to be free.
Uh, I hate to point this out to you, seeing as how you said it yourself, but: Copyright exists to promote the creation of new art. To do so it ensures that the market value of that art is artificially high. How else would it?
Also, you can cry about the loss of the "free market" all you want, but sooner or later you're going to have to realize that it never existed in the first place. The free market is an abstraction. It's an idealized point on one end of the spectrum. It is not a real thing.
Immaterial values can not be treated like physical goods and it's about time we stopped trying.
Nothing you've said leads to this conclusion. Furthermore, it's unclear what (if anything) this has to do with what's being talked about here.
Best summary. Evar.
I don't know why you linked to that. It agrees with what I've said far more than anything you've said. Additionally, I never said anything about the length of copyright, which is the point of that post. I am opposed to lengthy copyright terms myself, so I don't understand why you would think that I am not.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
This would be the same Cory Doctorow who releases his work under a no-derivatives, non-commercial license and argues on his site that he will not give away any rights that threaten his ability to make as much money as possible off of his work.
We are listening to him about the evils of control-freak copyright owners why exactly?
"Free" isn't, if you have to spend a lot of time to get "free" free.
This is why I said you can't compete with free on price alone. And the reason I did so is because you said: "The question whether they will buy or copy content can only be answered by its price."
That piracy tends to be more time consuming than buying is an artificial limitation created so that piracy will be more expensive: it is illegal, and therefore cannot be conducted as openly as legal exchanges. As I said before, since the cost is always zero, it is impossible to compete without artificial limitations like copyright law and DRM.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
It may be illegal to download TV episodes with BT, but the harm done is no worse than skipping the commercials on a DVR or walking out of the room during commercials. TV shows are paid for by advertisers. If you leave the commercials in the BT files, there's no harm done to advertisers at all, except for local ads being watched in places that don't matter to the advertiser. Because TV is already supported by advertisers, there's a big opportunity here for networks to innovate by legalizing P2P downloads that keep the commercials and then including download viewers when charging advertising rates. It won't happen though.
It may be illegal to download TV episodes with BT, but the harm done is no worse than skipping the commercials on a DVR or walking out of the room during commercials.
Except in both of those cases, you're actually paying for the content.
If you leave the commercials in the BT files, there's no harm done to advertisers at all
Indeed, if something that never happens were to happen, things might be different.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Except in both of those cases, you're actually paying for the content.
Umm no. Lots of people don't have cable or satellite. If I watch a TV show off the air, I don't pay for content. The advertisers pay for time with the hope that viewers will watch the commercials.
Indeed, if something that never happens were to happen, things might be different.
Well yes, that was a hypothetical scenario. Today, it's useless to include commercials in TV rips. I was just extending the scenario, that if TV networks made it legal to redistribute off-the-air recordings with the commercials intact, downloaders would probably prefer to download legal TV shows with commercials instead of illegal TV shows without commercials.