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AP Looks at Piracy, Misses the Point
TechDirt is reporting that the Associated Press has covered several stories recently about what a "huge threat" piracy is in other countries. This article, however, argues that they have perhaps missed out on the whole story by ignoring the other side of the coin. From the article: "the AP doesn't bother to mention how all that piracy helped created new and different business models for musicians in China that let them thrive despite the piracy (actually, in some cases, because of it). Nor does the AP bother to mention how software piracy helped boost certain aspects of the industry in China by decreasing the cost of inputs."
Since the AP believes its own business model is based on copyright, and gives bloggers who repost their articles a hard time, is it any surprise that they would defend copyright?
reporting on how well glaziers, builders, carpenters and building merchants also did in New Orleans after Katrina?
Misappropriating and/or "stealing" things that don't belong to you, or just flat out breaking the law (in some jurisdictions), is okay if in someone else's estimation it's actually "helping" them?
Brilliant!
Here's the problem: the new "business model" they talk about is that free music sometimes promotes something else (concerts, merchandise, or something new entirely). Ok, great. What if it's my music, and I don't want you to have it for free, regardless of how else it might "help" me? What if I've voluntarily signed on with a record label because I think that it's in my best interests (and no, I haven't been "brainwashed"), and that record label has a trade group that represents it, and what if the laws of my country support the protections of my creations?
I love how in the AllOfMP3.com story here recently, people talked about it as a new "business model" that the record labels and trade groups just hated. Um, huh? The Russian mob taking things that don't belong to them under the guise of a very weak argument that they can do it under radio license rules (which are designed, ironically, to get people to BUY the content, not as the mechanism for people to permanently obtain pristine digital copies) and selling them for 1/10 or 1/20 of what they sell for via legitimate channels is a "business model"? I guess if you don't believe that anyone should be able to "own" content like that, ever, and that the "legitimate" distribution channels are nothing more than a state-sponsored and -backed mob, ok.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that the the content owners might need to sell the content for 2 or 5 or 10 times more than AllOfMP3.com does to actually support the industry? If your answer is "no, they don't need all these ungodly rich Britney Spears types" etc., and should be able to sell it for just the costs of bandwidth, who the hell are YOU to decide that? Chances are, some of their promotion, advertising, distribution, marketing, and production is what made a particular artist - the popular ones people often pirate - desirable in the first place. And how is it even an argument that, essentially, you can "steal"/copy something on your own and get it for cheaper, and if it's more expensive than some arbitrary value you've set in your head, it's okay to just take?
But why is the anti-copyright argument always the one touted here?
And for those in the "copyright is bad on works that can be effortlessly copied in the digital realm", consider that "art for art's sake" isn't the end-all be-all argument, either. Have you ever considered that since economics isn't a zero-sum game, that there are millions of people who have indirectly benefited economically from the industries that have sprung up around, support, and are supported by, music, television, books, and movies?
I'm not saying the trade groups aren't out for control, and maybe even aren't greedy baby-eating bastards. But this isn't binary opposition: it's not RIAA-like "thuggery", or no ownership rights at all. Where's the middle ground? And no, I'm not saying copyright should be perpetual and infinite, either. But can we ignore A.A. Milne's shit that's 75 years old for a minute as an arguing point, and talk about what's really at issue, which is brand new, current, and popular music and movies?
As an anime fan, I download fansubs. Now, for the most part, this is piracy. These are television shows that have been recorded or ripped from DVDs, give subtitles, and been made available for free trade online through P2P networks.
However, it proves beneficial. Take for instance, Funimation. At conventions, the Funimation booth runs contests, and on the entry form you may list anime that you would like Funimation to consider licensing. They know these shows are being downloaded, and instead of condeming the person downloading like some other organizations, they ask if they should bring it stateside so that it may be introduced to a wider audience through American television.
I would prefer to see many organizations take this approach. I would love for record labels to ask "what unsigned artists are you listening to that you think we should consider signing".
Piracy can actually be used to a company's advantage at times, and too many seem pre-occupied with the short term loss of a $20 Ashlee Simpson CD to notice.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
And nor does AP bother to state that the US itself explicitly encouraged the pirating of foreign works in its 1790 Copyright Act:
Only in 1891 the US started protecting foreign works under the Chase Act. It serves to remember that the US justified pirating foreign works as being economically beneficial for the country. Even the Chase Act wasn't too friendly to foreign authors: it did protect their rights, but the Manufacturing Clause prevented their publishers from publishing their works in the US. This clause was removed only in 1986. It took the US 101 years to join the Berne Convention.
Actually, it is copyright that is an entirely recent development, for it appeared only a few hundred years ago in the West. The ancient world had no concept of "intellectual property", and creators of content in Greece and Rome understood that their work would be freely copied without compensation. As far as I know, they never protested the situation, and the only objection to some copying (in Martial's epigrams) was that often the poet was not being credited, but rather others claimed to have written it. Even today in place like India, the former Soviet Union, and southeast Asia, copyright makes no sense to the local population.
Now, just because there was no ownership of ideas for most of the history of mankind doesn't necessarily make copying just. After all, slavery and wife-beatery was also widespread until the modern era. However, the recent and geographically-limited genesis of copyright should nonetheless make one question if it is indeed a desirable institution, or merely a means of protecting the rich while limiting the rights of the many.
TFA and it's linked stories don't really go into much detail about what the actual benefits for the chinese industry are.
Can anyone supply some more information?
It's easy to invoke the old arguments about a colapsing business model and the failure of big companies to react to the market etc. etc. but how and why are chinese artists better without a working copyright system?
This isn't a rhetorical question, I'd like to know.
You have a good point, but let's take it one step further. In a developed country, such as the US, capital (software in this case)is relatively inexpensive and labor is relatively expensive (ie why we have H1B visas). ...
Now in the case of a developing nation, such as China, labor is relatively inexpensive and capital is relatively expensive. Numerous microeconomic models have different ways of combining capital and labor which yields output. The important thing here is that "cost" of captial goods are often the limiting factor for a developing nation. Piracy does lower this cost allowing developing nations to deliver capital intense (techy) goods at a lower per-unit cost. So one could make the arguement that by people in developed countries (such as the US) they are in effect allowing developing nations to produce good at an artifically lower price. However I don't see how lowering the price of music/videos much effect on a developed nation
I followed a few links from that Google search but failed to find a single one that pointed to a definition in the US code that included copyright infringement as theft. If there is a link there then please post it. Otherwise stop calling a spade a theft.
Tim Wu just had an article on Slate last week about how China is trying to grow their own film industry.
One of the interesting points: China has to orient (no pun intended) their films to an American audience because rampant piracy in China means that there isn't enough of a local market to support Chinese films.
I've heard the same thing from Chinese video game makers, they have to make games that will sell in places where copyright is to some degree respected because they would starve trying to live off the money they can make in their home market.
If everyone pirated everything we would have no Lord of the Rings movies, no video games like Halo or Grand Theft Auto -- we'd still have small indy films and subscription games like WoW, but piracy only works now because it's a group of parasites feeding off media that the rest of us pay for.
Missed the point? You've got to be kidding me.
Do the math: AP provides stories to publishers. Publishers are owned by large companies who publish stuff--like books, music, movies.
Did you REALLY expect them to bite the hand that feeds them?
Why would they publish a story that favors piracy helping people when they could push the agenda their way to protect the interests of the corporations pirates are hurting?
Look--piracy is stealing no matter what kind of spit shine you put on it. Are the BSA, MPAA, and RIAA going a bit over the top about it? Yes. Does that somehow make piracy right? No. It's still stealing. Just because the AP isn't picking up on what some techblog mentioned on slashdot doesn't make them morons. I think we glorify our own technical punditry beyond the tempest in the teapot that it really is.
It's never about what is the "best"--it's always about what's more popular. That's where the money is. Windows and VHS are testments to that. It's all about margins and paying off the share holders.
The REAL story is going to be which of the publishers (movie studios and record labels included) survive the learning curve of the new business model--the computer as an entertainment hub. The whole MP3 thing blew up not because of piracy but because it was EASY and CHEAP. That's what consumers want--easy and a fair price. The content providers are catching on--hence all the TV-a-la-carte on the iTMS.
Is it the best? Probably not. But is it lucrative? Hell, yeah. You don't have to be Warren Buffet to figure that out.
It's all about the Benjamins, baby.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Ok, I guess I'm a bad geek or something. I just never watched Futurama. Perhaps because I can't stand ads so I rarely watch TV to begin with.
That said, I didn't watch Futurama until I downloaded some episodes quite some time since the first run was cancelled. Then I downloaded the entire series and watched them. Now I own all four volumes on DVD and am looking forward to the next run.
Maybe this example is the exception and not the rule, but the fact of the matter is that my "piracy" or "illegal download" led to Fox getting some cash out of my pocket for the DVD. Cash that they would not have gotten otherwise. At the end of the day, I don't care what the AP says or does not say: piracy has caused me to spend more money than I would have without it. I'm tired of crappy entertainment or lack of creative writing talent ([sarcasm]I can't *WAIT* for the remake of the revenge of the nerds[/sarcasm]). I want to use it and then decide if it's worth my money: if not I move on; if so I buy it.
If I can't do that then I'll abandon/boycott/ignore the whole damn thing until I can. It's like being in the matrix and taking the red pill: once you snap out of the mindless, lemming-like world of the MPAA/RIAA/whatever-there-is-for-TV-networks-AA you take note of how crappy it was being Thomas A. Anderson.
And I'll watch nothing but TV ads & infomercials before I get suckered into the "you don't really own X any more and you have to pay $1.99 ever time you want to watch it." Sorry, but fuck that. Keep your damn blue pill.
:wq
1: Unreasonable patents caused early film makers to head out west to california, to this little place called hollywood, where they created an industry which makes billions from their product.
2: Video recorders cause hollywood to become worried because people can 'illegally' copy stuff, and they try to kill it, but it leads them into a prosperity never before seen, eventually spuring research into the dvd.
3: Filesharing causes media companies to become paranoid about loss of profit, then spurs the creation of online media delivery, again vastly increasing the potential profits of said media companies.
I wonder what the next thing is that they'll fight till it suddenly turns into a money maker?
"IMHO, an artist should be concerned with one thing: the spreading of his art."
Not food, clothing, shelter, feeding their family?
I see on your xanga that you are married. Would your wife be happy if you told her that you would no longer try to earn money for what you do? I also see that you just bought a new Mac -- great! Did you buy that with money you earned by working?
"Art used to be thought of as a means of promoting thought and creativity but gradually began to be thought of as a means of profit and popularity."
Art has been made for profit since the history of currency. Shakespeare, Mozart, and countless other grand masters were in it for the money. Sure, they liked what they did, but they were in it for the money -- just as you might have chosen a career in programming or IT because you enjoy it, but you're doing it for the money.
"Are artists going to make as much money? Probably not. Should that be their focus? I don't think so."
Well, I think that people in [INSERT ANDREW NAGY'S PROFESSION HERE] are too money-focused, and paying people like Andrew should be voluntary. Will Andrew make as much money? Probably not. But we'll get [THE OUTPUT OF ANDREW NAGY'S PROFESSION] for free, or at least cheaper.
I also see from your xanga that you are a religous man. Please re-read Luke 6:31, Luke 10:27 and Matthew 7:12 and consider how you can reconcile your attitude toward artists with the teachings of Jesus.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.